This book contains a section for each of the 73 Books found in the Catholic Canon of Scripture, but the Scripture itself will be missing. In its place will be 73 arguments against the concept of Sola Scriptura which is the belief that the Bible is the “Sole Rule of Authority.” It will also be abundantly clear that the “claim” individuals are guided by the Holy Spirit apart from the Catholic Church are patently false.
This means “unity” is impossible to achieve until Sola Scriptura is abandoned as a rule of faith.
The true rule of faith that we are bound to follow is the definitive teaching of the Catholic Church. The Church first receives what has been revealed in both the Written Word and Sacred Tradition (the Oral Word). It then uses these sources when it teaches with authority and infallibility given to it by Jesus Christ Himself. It is by the Catholic Church alone that we know whatever is to be held as authentic Christian doctrine in matters of faith and morals.
GENESIS
Where is the inspired table of contents?
Problem # 1 for Sola Scriptura –
There is not a single verse in all of Scripture that tells us what books were to be included in the Bible. And there is not a single person in the world that can produce such a verse.
In fact, when the Canon of Scripture was actually put together there were many dozens of alleged Gospels, as well as numerous Letters and Epistles alleged to be the Word of God (some of which were being used in Liturgical settings) that were not included in the Bible.
EXODUS
Problem # 2 for Sola Scriptura –
The Canon of Scripture was not determined as final until the year 382 A.D. by Pope St. Damasus the 1st at the Council of Rome.
Until that time there was no consensus on the Canon of Scripture for both the Old and New Testament. In fact, the most noted of scholars and Churchmen of the age had disputes over what should be considered the inspired Word of God, even when it came to writings from some of the Apostles themselves.
In fact, the formal Canon of Scripture that was given to us by Pope St. Damasus remained intact with 73 books until the year 1517 when the Protestant Reformers entered the scene.
LEVITICUS
Problem # 3 for Sola Scriptura –
Protestant’s reject the Catholic Magisterium. Yet, Protestants’ cannot point to any final authority in Christianity that could declare or define any Christian Doctrine before the New Testament was codified by Pope St. Damasus.
This means it’s impossible for Protestants to claim there was any definitive, objective doctrine, or belief in Christ that was final before the New Testament was codified. This means it would have been impossible to determine the Canon of Scripture without the Pope.
NUMBERS
Problem # 4 for Sola Scriptura –
If Protestants want to argue there was a final authority that existed BEFORE the Canon of Scripture was codified by Pope St. Damasus, that same authority which gave us the Bible cannot be the Bible itself.
This means the authority and infallibility in the decision of Pope Damasus could not cease to exist in the office of the Papacy AFTER the Bible was codified.
This is evidence that the authority and infallibility inherent in the Catholic Church is a living authority that did not cease to exist once the Church gave us the Canon of Scripture. It is evidence that Christ is with His Church till the end of time.
DEUTERONOMY
Problem # 5 for Sola Scriptura –
Protestants’ claim that by comparing one verse in Scripture to another verse in Scripture they can come to an authentic and definitive teaching about any given verse in Scripture to discern its authentic meaning in a definitive way. But reality condemns such a claim. Countless Protestants compare the same Scriptural verses, one to the other, and yet, they disagree and bicker with each other over what they regard as essential and non-essential in anything Christian regarding any given verse in Scripture.
JOSHUA
Problem # 6 for Sola Scriptura –
Protestants claim that Scripture itself is “Self-Authenticating.” This is the notion that the Bible itself stands as its own testimony that the Books of the Bible are inspired of God.
This claim is first and foremost a rejection of historical reality. We know, in fact, the Canon of Scripture was given to us by the Catholic Church. But even if we were to disregard the facts of history and allow the Protestant assertion that the books of the Bible to stand as their own testimony that they are inspired by God, this would not have done away with the problems inherent in Sola Scriptura.
If Scripture was “Self-Authenticating” there would not be, nor would there ever have been, any disagreement over any text.
In fact, if Scripture was “Self-authenticating," the Canon of Scripture would have been identified from the moment the authentic text was penned, long before a determination had to be made as to what was authentic Scripture to be included in the Canon of Scripture. This tells us the concept of “Self-Authentication of Scripture” is an absurd and desperate claim.
JUDGES
Problem # 7 for Sola Scriptura –
Some books in the Bible don’t even identify the author of the book.
We know the names of at least 38 alleged Gospels which would include the Gospel of James, Thomas, Judas, among others. We also have the names of other “Acts” such as the “The Acts of Pilate,” “The Acts of Paul and Thecla,” among others. And some put the numbers of letters alleged to be the word of God in the thousands. We also have a number of smaller Epistles and Apocalypses, but the Church did not consider these the inspired Word of God.
If we look at the Gospel of Matthew, no where does this Gospel tell us that Matthew himself was the author. What does this mean? It means there had to be an “infallible authority” to determine this Gospel to be inspired by God and written by Matthew. And this means Protestants are forced to accept the fact that the Sacred Oral Tradition and the infallible capacity, and authority, in the Church determined it to be the authentic Gospel of Matthew.
The determination for this Gospel to be considered the inspired Word of God, and therefore to be included in the Canon of Scripture to be held as “Matthew’s Gospel,” had to be made by an authority “outside of the Bible itself.” Therefore, if Protestants refuse to accept the fact that the “Self-Authenticating” principles of Sola Scriptura are false, they must now reject the Gospel of Matthew (and other books) because they were not “Self-Authenticating.”
RUTH
Problem # 8 for Sola Scriptura –
Protestants’ cannot claim "It does not matter who wrote the books in Scripture, as long as we have the inspired text. "
If the Gospel of Matthew, for example, lacks “Self-Identification” without an authority outside of the Bible to tell us it is indeed the Word of God and the Gospel of Matthew, it cannot be held with certainty as genuine.
A Protestant cannot argue that a Gospel, or any other book or letter that does not identify the author, is the authentic Word of God. They cannot claim, therefore, that the Bible is the only way to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, and therefore salvation.
1st SAMUEL
Problem # 9 for Sola Scriptura –
Protestants’ cannot claim that 2nd Timothy 3:16 is evidence that the books of the Bible are self-evidently the inspired Word of God?
2nd Timothy 3:16-17 reads:
16: “All Scripture, inspired of God, is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice.”
17: “That the man of God may be perfect, furnished to every good work.”
Adherents of Sola Scriptura make nine fatal mistakes regarding this verse.
1st - This verse does not list the Books that were to be included in the Bible which means we still depend upon an authority outside of the Bible to determine the Canon of Scripture. And since this requires something other than the Bible to confirm the Bible as the Word of God, this verse would require us to reject anything that Catholic Church does not declare as inspired of God. And that includes our obligation to reject the concept of Sola Scriptura.
2nd - The problem of division that results from interpreting Scripture according to Sola Scriptura is not done away with. Even though all of Scripture is inspired (as determined by the Church), without the Church, all the division in the world of Protestantism remains as they go about citing 2nd Timothy 3:16 to justify “their” interpretation of any given verse in Scripture.
3rd – The Greek word “ophelimos” (profitable) does NOT mean “sufficient”. It only means “useful”. Scripture was never intended by God, or by the Church, to be the only source of authentic Christian teaching or the sole authority of anything. It is “useful” in the life of the faithful, but it has no authority of itself.
4th – The Greek word “pasa,” often rendered as “all,” means “every.” This means “each and every Scripture” is profitable but none of Scripture can stand on its own as Self-Authenticating.
5th – The Scripture Paul referred to when he spoke of all Scripture being profitable does NOT the New Testament. Many Protestants fail to recognize this fact. And we know this is the case because he spoke of Timothy having known Scripture from his infancy, and at that time, the only Scripture available was the Old Testament Scripture. If Protestants were correct about Sola Scriptura, only the Old Testament Scripture would be profitable and the sole rule of faith, but this would be patently absurd.
6th - Protestants cannot argue that Paul was talking about the nature of Scripture rather than the Canon of Scripture for the New Testament. It is impossible to avoid the inherent contradictions in Sola Scriptura regarding the authentic Canon of Scripture which had to be decided upon by an authority outside of the Bible itself.
7th – The Greek word “artios,” translated as “perfect,” does not indicate that Scripture (Old Testament or New) are all that man needs as a rule of faith. In fact, every Protestant who differs with another Protestant over any given verse in Scripture is evidence against the claim that man is made “perfect by Sola Scriptura.” Furthermore, this verse refers to a member of the clergy, and not to a lay-person who is not ordained to the priesthood. This verse indicates formal training and spiritual direction is to be employed in the training of those who are to be ordained to the priesthood.
8th – Furthermore, to regard the use of the word “perfect” to mean the only necessary thing man needs to be saved in this verse of Scripture ends up contradicting other verses in Scripture which refute that claim. For instance, James uses the Greek word “teleios” to say a man is made perfect not by Scripture, but that we are made perfect by patience.
In James 1:4 we read:
4:”And patience has a perfect work; that you may be perfect and entire, failing in nothing.”
According to principles of Sola Scriptura, we must reject 2nd Timothy 3:16 because James 1:4 tells us patience is necessary for perfection, and patience is outside of the Bible. From here, the debate between these two verses breaks out into endless debate over whether or not this claim is valid, and this is evidence of the endless division within the concept of Sola Scriptura.
9th – For all of the same refutations of Sola Scriptura that have been made thus far, Protestants’ cannot use the Greek word “exartizo” which means “furnished, fully equipped, or thoroughly furnished” to claim that Scripture is all we need as a sole rule of faith.
There had to be an authority other than the Bible itself that determined what is to be held as the inspired Word of God. If we being “fully equipped” is sufficient for each Protestant according to the Principles of Sola Scriptura, there would be no division among Protestants. But reality proves this cannot be the case. The “fully equipped Protestants” bicker and fight with each other, in some cases vehemently, over what is essential and non-essential regarding any given verse in Scripture. And that includes both the Old and the New Testament.
2nd SAMUEL
Problem # 10 for Sola Scriptura –
Scripture itself informs us that it is insufficient as a "Teacher." We need an authentic, authorized, commissioned, infallible interpreter of Scripture to conclude there is anything definitive regarding Scripture.
Therefore, Protestants’ cannot make a case for “material sufficiency” to be found in Scripture. “Material Sufficiency” is the claim that all truths necessary for salvation are present in Scripture and independent of an authority outside of the Bible. It is the view that salvific truths necessary to be saved are clear and easily understood in Scripture itself. This is an impossible claim, and there are numerous examples to prove this cannot be the case.
For instance, Christ said we must eat His flesh and drink His Blood to have eternal life. If we are talking about salvation, we must take Him literal at these words if we expect to have eternal life. But Protestants reject His words as being literal, arguing that he could have only meant them in a symbolic way. Who is correct as to whether he meant those words literally or symbolically, the Protestant of the Catholic? Eternal life is at risk here, depending on who is correct. The Catholic can argue a Catholic view of material sufficiency prevails, and that a Protestant understanding of material sufficiency fails because the Protestant does not accept those words as literal, and therefore has a different standard as to what is necessary to define “material sufficiency.”
For those who wish to argue that “Formal sufficiency” exists in the Bible, they are incorrect. Formal sufficiency requires not only Scripture, but Sacred Tradition, and an infallible authority to give us Scripture, and then to safeguard a proper understanding of Scripture. This cancels out Sola Scriptura as a means of “Formal sufficiency” because it rejects any authority outside of the Bible.
Scripture itself informs us that Scripture needs an interpreter.
In 2nd Peter 1:20 we read:
20: “Understand this first, no prophecy of Scripture is made by PRIVATE INTERPRETATION”.
And in 2nd Peter 3:16-17 we read:
16: “As also in all of his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.”
17: “You therefore, brethren, knowing these things beforehand, take heed, lest being led aside by the errors of the unwise, you fall from your own steadfastness.”
He warns us that Sola Scriptura leads to destruction and stubbornness. And those who interpret Scripture apart from the Church to formulate their own doctrines are the doctrines of men which are condemned by the Apostle Paul.
We also know that Philip, and the Ethiopian eunuch, confirm Sola Scriptura as an impossible concept.
In Acts 826-40 we see the Holy Spirit guides Philip when he approaches the Ethiopian whereupon he sees the Ethiopian is reading from the Book of Isaiah. Philip asked him if he thought he understood what he was reading and the Eunuch confirmed he could not understand unless some man showed him. Scripture was not self-sufficient or self-authenticating for the eunuch. After reading and hearing the word of God, instruction is still needed.
1st KINGS
Problem # 11 for Sola Scriptura –
Every Protestant claims to be guided by the "Holy Spirit," and that means they claim to be infallible, for there is no other reason to make such a claim. In other words, every Protestants claims to be the Pope!
If they are not claiming they are infallible they can only be saying they are NOT infallible. And that would mean they can never be certain they are correct about the meaning they give to any verse in Scripture which they interpret. But it cannot be both ways. They cannot claim to be infallible and claim they are not infallible at the same time.
Therefore, they cannot reject the Pope and then claim to be the Pope. We have countless self-professed popes all throughout the world of Protestantism. All of these little "popes" are those who give birth to countless and endless divisions in Christianity. This is self-evident wherever Protestantism is found. There can only be one valid Pope or there is nothing objective in Christianity.
The moment that any Protestant claims his or her interpretation of Scripture is correct, over and above any other Protestant interpretation of the same verse in Scripture, that Protestant declares themselves to be the final authority to interpret Scripture. This, in fact, is a violation of the very principle of Sola Scriptura.
2nd KINGS
Problem # 12 for Sola Scriptura –
It is impossible that the Holy Spirit would be guiding each Protestant with contradictory interpretations of the same verses in Scripture that He may bring them to division.
Sola Scriptura, therefore, makes the Holy Spirit mutable, divided against Himself, a liar to some, and therefore a liar to all.
If Sola Scriptura was an authentic rule of faith there would never have been a single division in Protestantism since the very first day of the Reformation.
1st CHRONICLES
Problem # 13 for Sola Scriptura –
Protestant’s cannot avoid the inherent evil found in the concept of Sola Scriptura by “allowing” someone else’s interpretation of Scripture which disagrees with their interpretation to be equally valid to their own interpretation. Protestants’ are willing to embrace this violation of the principle of non-contradiction which says two opposing views cannot be equally true, just so they can cling to the satanic concept of Sola Scriptura.
This brings the Protestant back to “Square One.” There is simply no way to determine whose interpretation of Scripture is correct without an authority outside of Scripture itself.
To reject this fact would be to conclude anything definitive regarding the very Person of Jesus Christ, and all of Revealed Truth for that matter is impossible. In fact, Sola Scriptura renders Jesus Christ a liar and unknowable with any certainty in spite of the claim He made in John 14:6 when He says:
"I am the way, and the truth, and the life."
Protestants’ make this claim of Jesus useless because there are myriad of Protestant Denominations, guided by “Sola Scriptura” of course, telling us THEY EACH have the correct understanding of “the true Way, the true Truth, and the true path to Life.” Sola Scriptura is a self-evident, self-contradiction.
Jesus said the way to damnation is wide. In Mark 7:13-14 we read:
13: “Enter ye in at the narrow gate (The Catholic Church): for wide is the gate (Sola Scriptura), and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who go there.”
14: “How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leads to life: and few there are that find it!”
2nd CHRONICLES
Problem # 14 for Sola Scriptura –
Sola Scriptura is not taught any where in the Bible. It is never even mentioned. In fact, the Bible itself says the CHURCH is the “PILLAR AND GROUND OF THE TRUTH.” Scripture does not make this claim about the Bible itself.
In 1st Timothy 3:15 we read:
15: “But if I tarry long, that you may know how you ought to behave in the House of God, which is the CHURCH of the LIVING GOD, the PILLAR and GROUND of TRUTH.”
The arrogance of Sola Scriptura opines eternal destruction for those who embrace it. Protestants’ deny the very Church Christ empowered to teach in HIS name and with HIS authority. They would attempt to trump the very Church Christ established by means of Sola Scriptura. They have reduced themselves to mere religious relativists.
Our Lord explicitly gave His own authority to the Church with Peter at its head to safeguard and define the Deposit of Faith so that we are not subject to the snares of Satan by means of Sola Scriptura.
EZRA
Problem # 15 for Sola Scriptura –
The Bible itself tells us that WE ARE TO ACCEPT the “ORAL TRADITION” that comes to us from the Apostles themselves.
In 1st Corinthians 11:2 we read:
2: “Now I praise you, brethren, that in all things you are mindful of me; and keep my ordinances as I have delivered them to you.”
Paul himself went to them and spoke to them with his own mouth, and he praised them for keeping what he gave to them. And we are talking about Apostolic Oral Tradition.
And in 2nd Thessalonians 2:14 we read:
14: “Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the TRADITIONS which you have learned, WHETHER BY WORD, or by our Epistle.”
This Scriptural verse confirms the “living tradition” inherent in Apostolic teaching. Not only does it refute Sola Scriptura, it crushes it where it stands. It tells authentic believers they are solid in their faith by holding to what came from them through the Church which includes Oral Tradition by the use of the word “WORD”.
The Church also makes a distinction between what is known as “Upper case TRADITION” and “lower case Tradition”.
Upper case tradition refers to what has been divinely revealed. Lower case Tradition refers to those traditions that are good and valid in the Church but are not part of the Deposit of Faith. An example of upper case tradition and lower case tradition would be the divine mandate to pray and fast (upper case tradition) and how that would be done by way of discipline (lower case tradition). A well known example would be when the Church changed the discipline of eating meat on Friday. The Church did not do away with the divine mandate of prayer and fasting, it only changed how the divine mandate would be applied which it has every right to do.
When Protestants accuse Catholics of embracing doctrines based on tradition they fail to see that the Church makes perfectly clear Sacred Tradition contains nothing contrary to Scripture. And this clarification to those in rebellion comes from the very Church that gave us the Bible itself.
Since the Bible came from the Church, not the Church from the Bible, all Sacred Tradition would be found in Scripture, implicitly at a minimum. And since the Church gave us the Bible, Protestants cannot attack the Church when it draws from Sacred Tradition to illuminate certain doctrines that have always been present in the Sacred Traditions of the Church.
Another example would be the celebration of the Lords’ day on Sunday rather than on Saturday. We have evidence from history, Sacred Tradition, and from Scripture itself regarding the celebration of the Mass on the Lords’ day rather than on the Sabbath.
In fact, we have evidence from the Apostles themselves as to why we celebrate on the Lords’ day rather than the Sabbath. Yet, Protestants accuse the Church of following “Tradition” and breaking from the Bible by celebrating on the Lords’ day (Sunday) rather than the Sabbath (Saturday).
Catholics celebrate Mass on the 1st day of the week just like the Apostle Paul did. In Acts 20:7 we read:
7: “On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread…”
The functional purpose of the Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath, so, in fact, the Sabbath is even below man. And we must keep in mind there are 2 parties involved in the Hebrew Covenant. God is the 1st party, the Hebrews are the 2nd party. We are not the Hebrews so we are not bound to the Hebrew Covenant which is the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant is for the Sabbath, the New Covenant is under the Apostles. So we are not bound to the Old.
Furthermore, in Colossians 2:16-17 we read:
16: “Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day-- things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ”
This is in fact why Catholics’ worship on the Lords’ day and not the Sabbath. The Apostles and the early Church honored the Lords’ day above all else, because like St. Paul said, were it not for the resurrection, we would still be in our sin.
And in Revelations 1:10 we read:
“I was caught up in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day…”
Furthermore, in Acts 2:46-47 we read:
46: “And continuing daily with one accord in the Temple, and BREAKING BREAD FROM HOUSE TO HOUSE, they took their meat with gladness and simplicity of heart.”
47: “Praising God and having favor with all the people, and the Lord increased daily together such as should be saved.”
So, they didn’t just break bread on the Sabbath, or the Lords’ day. They broke bread daily in keeping with the Lords’ prayer, “Give us this day our “daily” (which is rendered as super-substantial bread).
So, neither Peter, nor Paul, or anyone else told those in the early Church they were bound to break bread on the Sabbath.
We also have the Letter of Barnabas 15:6-8 from 74 A.D. which reads:
“We keep the eighth day [Sunday] with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead”
And from Ignatius of Antioch, in his Letter to the Magnesians 8, 110 A.D., we read:
“Those who were brought up in the ancient order of things [i.e. Jews] have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s day, on which also our life has sprung up again by him and by his death”
So, the entire premise of those who accuse the Catholic Church of breaking with Scripture when it comes to Tradition claiming those "Traditions" are foreign to Scripture are not only baseless charges, they reveal what lurks in their hearts, namely, rebellion.
NEHEMIAH
Problem # 16 for Sola Scriptura –
Christ obligates us to submit to the authority of the Catholic Church which gave us the Bible. And in fact, the Lord Himself identifies the authority that is to correct the sinner is to be found IN THE CHURCH, and not in Scripture. He said the FINAL AUTHORITY rests in the Church itself, the very Church which He established.
In Matthew 18:15-18 we read how Christ instructs His disciples to correct the wayward. Jesus Christ Himself said in verse 17:
17: “And if he will not hear them: tell THE CHURCH. And if he will not hear THE CHURCH, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican.”
He declares these people are lost unless they repent and submit to the Church once again. And this means the Church had to be understood as established by Christ in a hierarchical fashion. Otherwise, no one would know where to bring the person needing correction.
If Protestants were correct in their understanding of the nature of the Church the person needing correction would have to be brought before a Bible and no one could say a word of correction. The Bible itself would have to speak to the sinner. Unless there is an “Easy Bible Button” on that Bible, the person needing the correction is going to be standing there for a very long time.
TOBIT
Problem # 17 for Sola Scriptura –
Protestants cannot appeal to instances where the Lord Himself cited Scripture as a basis to justify Sola Scriptura. It is the height of supreme arrogance to make such a claim. It is to claim they are equal to the Word of God Himself, as though they cannot err when they cite or interpret Scripture.
As a matter of fact, the Lord used Scripture to teach in some instances is evidence AGAINST the claim that the Scriptures are self-sufficient and self-authenticating.
Whenever the Scribes and Pharisees tried to use Scripture to trip Him up, the Lord cited Scripture in return to refute them. He refuted them to demonstrate they had incorrectly interpreted Scripture, and He corrected them. This is in fact why Christ had to give the Keys to the Kingdom to Peter and his successors so that His Church would be able to proclaim and define with certainty what we are to believe regarding the very person of Jesus Christ and what is necessary for salvation.
JUDITH
Problem # 18 for Sola Scriptura –
The early Christians did not have a Bible as we have it today. We know for a fact that the last book of the New Testament has not been written until the end of the 1st century, near the year 100 A.D.
This leaves a time period of about 65 years between the time Our Lord ascended into heaven and the time these texts would all have been penned. And it must be made clear that even though these books were written before the Bible was actually codified, they were not the only Letters, Epistles, and Gospels that were written and alleged to be the Word of God. The mere fact that they were written before they were included in the Canon of Scripture does not negate the fact that an authority other than the Bible itself had to include them in the Canon of Scripture from among the many texts alleged to be the inspired Word of God.
And since Protestants maintain we need the Bible to be saved, and that we need the Bible alone to know what is necessary to be saved, who or what was the infallible authority during the 65 year time period before the last text was penned?
One would have to conclude, according to the principles of Sola Scriptura, that all those who lived during that 65 year time period were souls that were lost because they did not have the Bible and consequently did not know how to be saved. And this is because Protestants’ reject the Teaching authority and Sacred Tradition of the Church.
Now, step it up another notch. Go from the year 100 A.D. to the year 382 A.D. Protestants’ must conclude that anyone who lived between the time that Christ ascended until the year 382 A.D. could not have been saved because they didn’t have a Bible.
ESTHER
(Includes additions)
Problem # 19 for Sola Scriptura –
According to Sola Scriptura, the early Church lacked a definitive authority until the Bible was penned and then codified. This would mean the Church was defenseless in the face of the dissenters in the earliest days of the Church. It would mean it was impossible for anyone to say anything certain about Christ and salvation.
If this were true we could not know if heresies actually entered into those who would write or interpret anything alleged to be the Word of God. Protestants’, therefore, call Christ a liar.
Their assertion that the Bible is the sole authority and the only means by which we can have a proper understanding of faith in Christ, and what we must do to be saved, says that Christ defected on His promise to be with His Church ALL DAYS UNTIL THE END OF TIME.
Advocates of Sola Scriptura would change the words of Christ to say “I WILL BE WITH YOU ONCE THE BIBLE IS COMPOSED UNTIL THE END OF TIME”.
Jesus did not defect. Protestants’ are the one’s who defected from the Church that Jesus Christ instituted.
In Matthew 28:20 we read:
20: “Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.”
And in John 14:18 we read:
18: “I will not leave you orphans.”
Advocates of Sola Scriptura have to maintain that Christ not only defected from His Church until the Bible was composed and codified, but that He lied and was not Omniscient, nor Omnipresent as a Divine Person.
And it is impossible for Protestants to claim that an absolute final authority was not necessary in these earliest days of the Church. In fact, false teaching had already cropped up as we see in Galatians 1:6-9:
6: “I wonder that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel.”
7: “Which is not another, only there are some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.”
8: “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema.”
9: “As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema.”
Add to this the fact that the early Christians were being martyred for specific beliefs. If there was no final authority, no final doctrine until the Bible was compiled, for what did they die?
And if the Protestant wants to argue that the Apostles were still alive to bridge the 65 year time period, and therefore no Bible was needed, they are wrong on multiple counts.
1st – The books finally accepted that were written during that 65 year time period were not the only ones penned. There was still an authority needed to make the selection of the final books, and this took place in 382 A.D.
2nd – Even though Christ did in fact commission His apostles with His own authority (this is in fact what the Catholic Church claims) there is nothing in Scripture, or anywhere else for that matter, that says the authority of the Apostles ceased to exist with the death of the original Apostles. In fact, the contrary is the case. We have the Scriptural evidence to prove Apostolic succession was in place and understood by the Apostles themselves because they quoted an Old Testament prophecy to replace Judas with Matthias “that another may fulfill his office of Bishopric.”
Nowhere in Scripture does it say that after the death of the Apostles the written form of the New Testament would be the final authority. Once again, that would mean Christ defected from His Church for nearly 350 years.
1st MACCABEES
Problem # 20 for Sola Scriptura –
If Protestants wish to insist the Holy Spirit guided the early Church until the Bible was finally compiled and codified they have abandoned the argument for Sola Scriptura.
If the Church was guided directly by the Holy Spirit and not through the men that Christ established to lead His Church then the Bible is lacking as an authority. To be guided by the Holy Spirit without the Bible is to claim authority outside of the Bible itself.
This means the Holy Spirit ceased to be the authority which guides the Church once the Canon of Scripture was codified and the Bible became the sole rule of authority.
The Protestant view of authority forces the Holy Spirit to make sure a person has a Bible in their hands so they can read it and interpret with the Holy Spirit who now inspires them once the Bible has been codified. This is to claim the Holy Spirit needs the Bible to guide an individual. This is the absurdity of Sola Scriptura.
The fact is, the Holy Spirit was sent to guide the Church that Jesus Christ established. He has not left His Church, nor will He leave the Church. The Pope, and the Bishops in union with him, constitutes the teaching office in the Church that Jesus established. He will not let this authority lead us into error, and we have Christ’s promise on this.
This means that even if a single letter had never been penned to be part of a Bible, the Church would still be preaching the Gospel with authority and infallibility given to it by Jesus Christ right up until the end of time.
2nd MACCABEES
Problem # 21 for Sola Scriptura –
Not only did the Catholic Church codify the Bible; the New Testament was written by Catholics. And the fact is, the Bible came from the Catholic Church, not the Church from the Bible.
Catholic men penned every single letter in New Testament Scripture. And of course, the Israelites wrote the Old Testament under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
It is indisputable that our Lord set up a “teaching authority” in His Church to teach and preach the Gospel in His own name. Nowhere in Scripture do we ever see the Lord commission His Apostles to go out and evangelize the world by writing a Gospel in His name and then leave it to the Holy Spirit to guide individuals once they pass out the books.
The printing press would not be developed for 15 centuries after Our Lord walked on this planet. Bibles were simply not available, therefore, the Principles of Sola Scriptura makes Christ’s commission an impossible task because there were no Bibles to pass out.
The Lord always made clear His Church was a teaching Church, not a Bible based Church.
In Luke 10:16 Christ said:
16: “He that hears you, hears Me, and he that despises you despises Me, and he that despises Me despises Him who sent Me.”
JOB
Problem # 22 for Sola Scriptura –
If Jesus did not establish a teaching authority in His Church the Gospel that was preached (not only written) would never be able to reach the ends of the world intact. We have seen from the very first days of the Church there were attempts to corrupt the Gospel even before the New Testament had been written and codified.
It is impossible that the Church which Christ endowed with the authority and capacity of infallibility should relinquish these things on the day it codified the written Word. Not only did the Church give us the Scripture, it is the Church alone which has the authority to definitively interpret Scripture. No man can take it upon himself to wrestle the Scriptures away from the Church and then claim to have the authority to interpret it apart from the Church. Nor does any man have the authority to interpret Scripture in any way that is at odds with how the Church understands any given verse in Scripture.
It is therefore impossible for Scripture alone to serve as a rule of faith independent of the very Church that gave us the Bible. That would be equivalent to saying we are born of motherhood in general without being born of a specific mother.
PSALMS
Problem # 23 for Sola Scriptura –
It is impossible for Protestants to conclude that the Church elevated the written Word of God to be superior to its own teaching authority.
As we have seen, Jesus said:
“He who hears you HEARS ME … He who rejects you rejects ME …”
Therefore, any attempt made by Protestants to minimize the “ORAL teaching authority of the Church” is not only to minimize the words of Christ, but it is to reject Jesus Christ himself, and they do so at their own peril.
Jesus Christ, the Word of God, became man and was seen in human form. And the Word of God became man and spoke “orally” in human form. The Word of God is not only authoritative, but He comes to us in different forms and in different modes of presence.
To deny any form or mode by which Jesus comes to us would be to reject Jesus in His entirety since there is only One Word of God.
So, when Jesus said He comes to us through the teaching authority of His Church by saying, “He who hears you hears Me …” It is impossible for a Protestant to claim they listen to Jesus by means of Sola Scriptura but reject the Church HE commissioned with His own authority to teach and to bind and loose.
Furthermore, it is impossible that Jesus said “He who hears you hears Me …” to every member of the Church rather than those He established to be at the head of His Church. If that were the case, every man could make the claim that whoever disagrees with his interpretation of Scripture is not listening to Jesus who is speaking to us through them.
This is why there is no unity possible in the world of Protestantism.
There are even Protestants who deny that Jesus is God claiming He is not equal to the Father, but rather the “Son of God” being lesser in nature. In fact, they come to such conclusions by means of Sola Scriptura reading the very same verses of Scripture that other Protestants’ read.
So, any Protestant who says that all Protestants agree on the essentials is woefully mistaken. Belief that Jesus Christ is literally God is essential to Christian belief.
PROVERBS
Problem # 24 for Sola Scriptura –
It is impossible to deny that the Early Church Fathers affirmed the Magisterial and Hierarchical authority in the Catholic Church as established by Jesus Christ Himself, and as taught by the Catholic Church to this very day.
The Catholic Church has the evidence of Apostolic Succession down to the very names of the individuals who succeeded the Apostles in their office as Bishop. It has the evidence to show that her Bishops always acted and exercised their authority to be the guardians of the Deposit of Faith. And it has the evidence that the Church always understood that Peter and his successors held the highest authority in the Church.
It is impossible for Protestants to argue that the Church did not understand herself from the very beginning to be a hierarchical Church. And Protestants cannot point to anything in Scripture or in history to refute this reality. Nor can they claim that at any point in time the faithful repudiated the authority of the Bishops to be invalid or inferior to the concept of Sola Scriptura.
It is impossible to separate the teaching authority of the Church from Apostolic Tradition. Both are authoritative and subject ultimately to the Successor of Peter.
ECCLESIASTES
Problem # 25 for Sola Scriptura –
There is no difference between that scenario of “Sola Constitution” and “Sola Scriptura”.
Sola Scriptura is an impossible fantasy in the minds of the rebellious. Look around and try to make the claim there is unity in the world of Protestantism. On its face, Sola Scriptura stands self-condemned. Protestants would turn the written Word of God into a source for spiritual anarchy.
For this is in fact what Protestants’ have done since the days of the Reformation.
And if one examines the state of affairs in Europe at the time of the Reformation, Europe was beset by not only spiritual anarchy but social disturbances as well. And many who attacked the Church became more corrupt in their own lives than the very ones they attacked in the Church over matters of corruption.
SONG OF SONGS
(Song of Solomon)
Problem # 26 for Sola Scriptura –
If it were not for the teaching authority and infallible capacity in the Catholic Church, Protestants of today would most likely believe that Jesus is only a creature, and they would certainly feel to believe that was the case.
The heretic Arius, without doubt, quoted Scriptural verses from text considered to be the Word of God before the Bible was compiled and codified to make his case that Jesus was a creature and not co-equal with the Father in nature. A large number of Bishops and Christians were swept away by the teachings of Arius to such an extent that a Council was held in Nicea in 325 A.D. This Council was held under the authority of the Pope, and Arius was declared a heretic and his teaching became known as the Arian Heresy.
Protestants’ need to understand the Council made its decision by drawing on Sacred Tradition in union with the Authority of the Papacy and the Bishops in communion with him. It is impossible, and indeed laughable, for any Protestant to say the teaching authority of the Church has not preserved the Church from the most profane of heresies.
If Sola Scriptura were a valid principle then the voice of Arius would be equal to the Council which condemned his teaching.
Protestants of today can only say that Arius was a heretic in light of the decision rendered by the authority of the Council that had been authorized by the Pope.
This leads to the obvious conclusion that without an authority that is outside of the Bible itself there is no way to say anyone is right or wrong in how they interpret any given verse in Scripture.
In all cases where heresy reared its ugly head there would be attempts to interpret the written Word of God apart from the Church that Christ established, and apart from the Magisterium and the Sacred Tradition of the Catholic Church.
WISDOM OF SOLOMON
Problem # 27 for Sola Scriptura –
The original manuscripts of the Bible do not exist, not a single one of them. This, in and of itself, destroys the concept of Sola Scriptura. No Protestant could know with any certainty if they possess the authentic copy of the original manuscripts, or that the copies conveyed an authentic understanding of the original written Word of God.
In fact, it can only be said that the original text was inspired, but it cannot be said the copies were inspired. This means there had to be an authority that not only compiled the books for the Bible, but it had to be an authority that said the copies conveyed the original sense which was measured by the teaching authority and the Sacred Tradition of the Catholic Church.
Add to this fact, the manuscripts we have are most often copies of copies of copies. So each time we have a copy we are removed once more removed from the original. And this means there must be an authority other than the Bible that validates each successive translation as being faithful to the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Protestants’ reject Apostolic Succession as having any weight, but they have to accept the fact of Scriptural succession, and this means the Apostolic Succession is the authority over and above the Bible itself.
SIRACH
(Ecclesiasticus)
Problem # 28 for Sola Scriptura –
No book makes copies of itself. Someone has to do it, and that means there is something or someone outside the Bible itself making the copy. This means there has to be an authority outside of the Bible that determines if the copy is faithful to Sacred Tradition and the Teaching authority of the Church because we don’t have the originals.
It is therefore impossible for Protestants to argue that it doesn’t matter if we don’t have the original manuscripts. If there is no authority outside of the Bible they cannot demonstrate that God guaranteed authentic copies were made down through the centuries.
So not only is the Bible NOT self-sufficient, or self-authenticating.
There is no verse in Scripture that tells us the Holy Spirit assures us that every copy of the Bible ever made into any language is guaranteed to be free from error. Protestants’ must therefore reject Sola Scriptura.
ISAIAH
Problem # 29 for Sola Scriptura –
If a Protestant wants to argue that God kept the written transmission of His Word free from error they have to produce the evidence in Scripture that he promised to do so. They cannot produce the evidence, and it is a simple fact that the books contained in the Bible came to us through inspired men and determined to be so by inspired men who made the selection for the Canon of Scripture.
JEREMIAH
Problem # 30 for Sola Scriptura –
Not only are there thousands of different manuscripts of the Bible that were copied down through the centuries after the originals were lost to time, but within this vast amount of copies there are hundreds of thousands of variations.
There are differences in word sequencing, spelling, titles of books, and the originals were not broken down into chapter and verse as we have them today. There has to be an authority outside the Bible to determine if these differences are faithful to the originals, and without the Church authority it is impossible to do that.
And there is evidence that Scribes, at times, modified some Biblical text so that various passages worked better together. There is also evidence to show text was changed to match historical facts, and also to make certain doctrinal views more clearly understood in these copies.
In light of these facts, it is impossible for a Protestant to appeal to Scripture as the sole authority because he is appealing to changes that were made by someone outside the Bible. Without the Church it is impossible to know if the one’s who made these changes altered the original sense from the original manuscripts which no longer exist.
The Protestant has no doctrinal certainty apart from the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.
LAMENTATIONS
Problem # 31 for Sola Scriptura –
According to the manuscripts (copies) which still exist, the Gospel of Mark has four different endings.
1st – The short ending includes verses 1-8 of Chapter 16.
2nd – The intermediate ending has between 2 and 3 lines of text between verse 8.
3rd – The longer ending which includes 1-8 and in addition it has verses 9-20.
4th – The longest ending has several verses after verse 14.
Since we don’t have the originals, let the Protestant try and tell us which one is the authentic, inspired ending to Marks’ Gospel.
It is therefore impossible for Protestants to know where Marks’ Gospel authentically ends from the Bible itself. And this means anytime a publisher prints a Bible he is violating the principle of Sola Scriptura because the printer will never know if they are adding or subtracting from the Original text of Marks’s manuscript which no longer exists to confirm. And in making a decision as to which is the correct ending, the Protestant must now act as an authority external to the Bible itself, the very thing the Protestant rejects in Catholicism.
Since the doctrine of Sola Scriptura depends in its entirety upon having the entire Word of God present in the Bible this renders Sola Scriptura an impossible concept.
Furthermore, Protestants cannot claim the explanatory notes for each possible ending are inspired because they are not part of the Word of God. They are simply other commentary that comes from outside the Bible which Sola Scriptura does not allow.
BARUCH
(Includes Letter of Jeremiah)
Problem # 32 for Sola Scriptura –
It is impossible for Protestants to avoid the fact that there are not only vast amounts of variations in Biblical manuscripts, but they have an additional problem.
There are hundreds of different “versions” of the Bible, and there are numerous sources that account for these different versions. It is therefore impossible for the concept of Sola Scriptura to determine which of these versions have sources which are faithful to the originals since we don’t even have the original texts.
EZEKIEL
Problem # 33 for Sola Scriptura –
The Scriptures have been translated into every language in the world. The Bible cannot do this by itself. This means there has to be an authority to determine whether or not the translation is faithful to the original manuscripts which no longer exists. This can only be done when Apostolic authority and Sacred Tradition found in the Catholic Church determine if the translation was faithful.
DANIEL
(Includes Susanna…)
Problem # 34 for Sola Scriptura –
Archaeological discoveries give us more and more insight into Scriptural text all the time. An example of this would be the famed “Dead Sea Scrolls.”
As a result of this discovery we know more about Scriptural origins than did the Reformers found in Protestantism.
It can therefore be said that modern Bibles are superior to Bibles that were produced immediately after the Reformation because of recent discoveries like the Dead Sea Scrolls.
One can also argue that the Latin Vulgate produced by Saint Jerome in the 4th century was based on the actual original texts which he had available to him at that time, but have since perished. This would mean Jerome’s version would not be subject to the corruptions and variations that took place in successive copies (which are not inspired) for the next 12 centuries up to the time of the Reformation.
The means there has to be different degrees of accuracy in the various versions which means, according to the Principles of Sola Scriptura, there has to be Bibles with different degrees of authority if in fact the Bible is the sole authority, the sole rule of faith. Without an authority outside of the Bible, each variation makes the Bible a different Bible.
HOSEA
Problem # 35 for Sola Scriptura –
Inferior and superior translations of Scripture means the door is open to error in the translation the further you move away from the original manuscripts which no longer exist. And all of this takes place in copies that are not inspired to protect them from error or can declare themselves to be faithful to the original manuscripts.
By rejecting the authority and infallible capacity in Pope Damasus, Protestants take us back to the year 382, and they bring with them all the corrupted texts and variations in the numerous translation that have taken place down through the centuries to our own time.
And they throw it on the table in front of the Pope and add to the different lists he already had to select from. But Protestants’ don’t really want him to decide, they want him to include all the corruption and variations that took place into the Canon of Scripture so they don’t have to give up Sola Scriptura.
JOEL
Problem # 36 for Sola Scriptura –
Men are not always completely objective and impartial in their work.
Without the authority of the Catholic Church to discern the finished product and determine whether or not bias entered into the picture, we cannot know if the translation is faithful to the Church according to Sacred Tradition. Therefore we cannot know if the translation or the copy is faithful to the original manuscripts which no longer exist if there is no authority outside of the Bible to tell us they are indeed faithful.
AMOS
Problem # 37 for Sola Scriptura –
Protestants’ cannot criticize Jehovah Witnesses or Mormons for doing the very thing that Protestants do.
If there is no ultimate authority in the Catholic Church to decide such matters, and if all is left to the concept of Sola Scriptura, those who pervert Scripture are no different than those who pervert Scripture. Ultimately, there is no difference between Protestants, Mormons, or Jehovah Witnesses because on the bottom line, they all claim the Bible is its own authority and they are free to interpret it as they see fit claiming to be guided by the Spirit of God.
Protestants’ fail to see that for every source they quote to prove the Mormons or the Jehovah Witnesses are wrong, the Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses can do the same regarding Protestantism. It’s like a free for all! Whatever you want any given verse in Scripture to mean, just find a source, as long as you don’t acknowledge the fact that the Bible came from the Catholic Church.
OBADIAH
Problem # 38 for Sola Scriptura –
The Catholic can argue that God safeguards Sacred Oral Tradition and the Authority of the Magisterium as a fact, because if He did not, we cannot know if the Church made the right selection of books when it determined the Canon of Scripture.
It is an indisputable that only after time passed that SOME of the Oral Tradition was put into writing, not all of it. And after several hundred years, these manuscripts were declared by the Church to be inspired by God. And this confirms the necessity of Sacred Oral Tradition and the Infallibility of the Papacy which measured what came to be known as the Bible.
JONAH
Problem # 39 for Sola Scriptura –
If the Bible is the sole authority by which we know what we must do to be saved, and if we must interpret Scripture unto salvation, this would mean the salvation of every Christian who lived before the advent of the printing press was in jeopardy.
MICAH
Problem # 40 for Sola Scriptura –
Protestants follow a tyrannical God. The God of Sola Scriptura is a cruel and punishing God because Protestants’ fail to make the proper distinctions between being “predestined” and “predetermined.”
To be “predestined” simply means God knows what we will choose without doing the choosing for us; to be “predetermined” means we are robots with no free will and God does the choosing for us. Sola Scriptura makes God sin, not man.
According to the terms of Sola Scriptura and a Protestant understanding of “Predestination”, God predetermined countless souls to be without a Bible for 1,500 years thereby depriving them of the knowledge and means of salvation. Lacking the Bible which Protestants’ claim is the sole authority they could not have faith to be saved. If Protestants’ acknowledge faith comes through hearing, then a Bible is not needed to be saved because this would mean there is an authority outside of the Bible by which we are saved.
NAHUM
Problem # 41 for Sola Scriptura –
Sola Scriptura denies the fact that God revealed the fullness of Christ to this world.
There are “Christians“ who will interpret Scripture to determine whether or not Jesus is God and end up at odds with each other. Some claim He is divine and God, some claim he is merely a perfect creature.
Lacking objectivity and an authority outside of the Bible, Sola Scriptura informs us that Jesus does not know if HE is God because there is no definitive way to determine this. Therefore, Christ is in glory and is very confused about who He is, because He is vicariously being informed as to who and what He is as determined by the one who interprets Scripture.
HABAKKUK
Problem # 42 for Sola Scriptura –
Sola Scriptura renders the Trinitarian doctrine uncertain because there are “Christians” who interpret Scripture to say there are not 3 distinct persons in the one God.
This means the Trinity is in a constant state of flux between 3 persons in one God, 3 modes of presence in One God rather than 3 distinct persons, or 3 distinct Gods who are not one in essence.
Sola Scriptura is an attack on the Trinity itself.
ZEPHANIAH
Problem # 43 for Sola Scriptura –
Sola Scriptura silences God the Father because man is the final arbiter of what is authentically inspired and revealed.
HAGGAI
Problem # 44 for Sola Scriptura –
Sola Scriptura silences the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit cannot be telling every Protestant who disagrees with other Protestants contradictory things. It is impossible to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit according to the principles of Sola Scriptura.
ZECARIAH
Problem # 45 for Sola Scriptura –
Sola Scriptura is a doctrine of man. John Wycliffe is often referred to as “The Morning Star of the Reformation.” He was one of the first who opposed the influence of the Papacy in matters of secular power and authority, and was an advocate for translating the Bible into the common tongue. He got the ball rolling with what came to be known as the “Lollard” movement which many regard to be a precursor to the Protestant Reformation.
Resistance to the Papacy and Scripture in the common tongue emboldened Luther to make his move in the 16th century. Before Luther, Sola Scriptura did not exist as a concept. Nearly 16 centuries after Christ walked on earth it was Luther who first claimed:
“There is only one source of faith, and that is Holy Scripture. Each Christian conscience must interpret Scripture for itself under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.”
In fact, one might say of his words:
“Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you Martin Luther, but the Father of Lies in hell revealed this to you. To you were given the keys of subjectivism. Whatever you declare bound on earth is pure subjectivism and resonates in hell. Whatever you declare loosed on earth adds to division in the Kingdom on earth.”
The simple fact is, this man-made doctrine of Sola Scriptura lacks not only historical continuity back through the Apostles to Jesus, it is a total repudiation of all that came before it for nearly 16 centuries.
It does not matter how many times, or how often Protestants utter the mantra that the Bible is the sole authority, and sole rule of faith, the simple fact is, Sola Scriptura is NOT Biblical.
MALACHI
Problem # 46 for Sola Scriptura –
Protestants’ differ on how we are justified and whether or not we can lose our justification once we are justified.
Some Protestants teach we are made righteous by declaration and others argue that a Christian must grow in sanctity to become righteous.
None of this can be resolved by means of Sola Scriptura.
MATTHEW
Problem # 47 for Sola Scriptura –
There is only the Catholic Church. The title “Roman,” as used by Protestants, is a derogatory term. They do this to hijack the title of Catholic from the Church Christ established.
Protestants want to redefine “Catholic” to represent all of the Christian denominations in the aggregate as representing the Church in its entirety. This is impossible to do. The word “Catholic” means “universal” and there is nothing universally true about Protestantism in the aggregate. In fact, there is nothing but division, so it is impossible to claim the title of “Catholic” applies to a Protestant understanding of the word. Where truth is, unity is. And absolute unity is impossible for Sola Scriptura.
Sola Scriptura, therefore, mocks Jesus when He prays in John 17:21:
21: “That they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me and I in thee; that they also may be one in us.”
Protestantism fights against Jesus and His prayer for unity, and Sola Scriptura is the Protestant weapon of choice in the fight.
MARK
Problem # 48 for Sola Scriptura –
Sola Scriptura resulted in the removal of 7 complete books from Scripture. Protestants are unyielding on the need to repent for this blasphemy, and accept once again the full Canon of Scripture as found in the Catholic Bible. Protestants are guilty of thumbing their nose at God.
In fact, Protestants have rejected 7 complete books from the Old Testament and portions of 2 other books.
The books the Protestants tossed out are: Tobias (Tobit), Judith, 1st and 2nd Machabees, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus (or Sirach), and Baruch. And they also threw out portions of Daniel and Esther. Protestants refer to these books at “Apocrypha” which means “not authentic”, whereas Catholics refer to them as the “Deuterocanonical” books, or the “2nd Canon of Scripture”, and are in fact the inspired Word of God.
Scripture itself tells Protestants nothing can be tossed out of Scripture.
LUKE
Problem # 49 for Sola Scriptura –
Protestants’ cannot justify why they throw out entire books from the Canon of Scripture that were in place for nearly 12 centuries. They will say:
The shorter, Pharisaic (Palestinian) canon of the Old Testament had been accepted by Christ and the Apostles, and that they never quoted from what Catholics call the “Deuterocanonical books.”
This is simply a false claim made by Protestants. If we examine the New Testament we find it cites Old Testament quotations nearly 350 times, and of those, 300 quotes are taken directly from the Septuagint version of the Old Testament which was a Greek translation of the Old Testament widely in use at that time. The Septuagint version of Scripture is the version of Scripture that contained the “Deuterocanonical Books”. It is foolish for Protestants to argue that Jesus and the Apostles did not accept the Septuagint version of Scripture when they in fact cited and quoted from the Deuterocanonical books themselves.
JOHN
Problem # 50 for Sola Scriptura –
Protestants cannot argue that the Old Testament had been closed by the time of Christ, and that the Old Testament Canon of Scripture was the shorter Canon.
History itself proves this claim to be false. There was never a Canon of Scripture known as the “Palestinian Canon.” In fact, there were 3 other “Canons of Old Testament Scripture” in use at that time, not counting the Septuagint Canon.
Historical evidence demonstrates there was no consensus even on the Old Testament as to what was considered the final Canon of Old Testament Scripture at the time of Christ. There were numerous views on the final Old Testament Scripture in the 2 centuries preceding Christ and after he became man as well.
Sola Scriptura cannot resolve this.
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
Problem # 51 for Sola Scriptura –
It is impossible to argue that the Jews at the time of Christ accepted the shorter Canon of Jewish Scripture, or the Pharisaic Canon at the Council of Jamnia held in 90 A.D.
The Pharisees rejected the Deuterocanonical Books because these books confirmed the divinity of Christ. In effect, the Jews who rejected Christ became a people without a religion and without a country. The Temple destroyed, Christ had resurrected, they were stiff-necked and it was to be expected they would reject the Septuagint.
Keep in mind the Council of Jamnia was a Jewish Council that had absolutely no power of binding anything upon the Christians. And there is no evidence this Council ever determined what the Pharisees would hold to be the final Canon of Old Testament Scripture. And we know this because to those Jews, Scripture was those books that “defiled the hands”. After touching a scroll upon which Scripture was written, a Jew was required to wash their hands.
This was held in strict observance all the way through to the 4th century. But this varied within Judaism according to which Old Testament Canon of Scripture was held to be final.
And the Council of Jamnia represented only one branch of Judaism according to the Pharisees within Palestine at that time, but not all of Judaism. In the end, the Council of Jamnia was a statement against Christianity, and Luther appealed to this very Council to justify his own rejection of entire books from Scripture.
ROMANS
Problem # 52 for Sola Scriptura –
Protestants cannot argue that the “Deuterocanonical Books” contain material that is not the inspired Word of God.
This is a claim made by those who hate the Catholic Church. They rejected the “Deuterocanonical Books” because they fully support Catholic doctrine such as prayers for the dead as we find in 2nd Machabees 12:46 which states:
46: “It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.”
The reason Protestants’ reject this book is because this verse is Scriptural evidence that supports the Catholic doctrine on Purgatory.
Protestants’ are sources external to the Bible itself, and they are cut off from all objectivity simply because they embrace Sola Scriptura.
1st CORINTHIANS
Problem # 53 for Sola Scriptura –
Protestants cannot require that a book from the Old Testament needs to be cited by Christ or the Apostles as a prerequisite to be admitted to the Canon of Scripture.
For example, the following books in the Old Testament were not cited by either Christ or the Apostles:
Ecclesiastes, Esther and Abdias (Obadiah)
Nevertheless, they are included in the Old Testament canon of Scripture for both Catholics and Protestants.
Furthermore, this points to the fact that an external authority is needed to determine these books were inspired Word of God to be admitted into the Canon.
It is an indisputable fact that from the 1st Century until the 4th Century, when both the Old and New Testament was codified by Pope Damasus I at the Council of Rome, the “Deuterocanonical Books” were held by the Church to be the inspired Word of God. And so it remained until the Reformation when the arrogance of the Reformers decided they could toss entire books from Scripture. These Books had been codified and accepted for 12 centuries in the formal Canon of Scripture, not to forget 16 centuries that it had been held in Sacred Tradition and by Apostolic Authority.
And to confirm this, we know that the missionary activity of Paul was to the Greeks in regions beyond Palestine. His sermons in Antioch would have required knowledge of the Septuagint version of Scripture due to the manner in which he preached to them because the Hebrew Scriptures had been translated into the Greek because the Jews of that time and that region spoke mostly in the Greek. And we know that Paul regarded the Septuagint as the Old Testament Canon of Scripture because he often cited it and made appeal to it in his preaching.
2nd CORINTHIANS
Problem # 54 for Sola Scriptura –
Protestants’ cannot argue that we have all the words of Christ that are necessary for salvation in the Bible to the exclusion of Sacred Tradition. Before He left us He had this to say:
In John 16:12-13 we read:
12: “I have yet many things to say to you: but you cannot bear them now.”
13 “But when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will teach you ALL truth. For he shall not speak of himself; but what things soever he shall hear, he shall speak; and the things that are to come, he shall shew you.”
Jesus said he will teach you ALL truth, so there was more to come. And He did not put a time limit on it by saying once Scripture is codified and Canonized the Holy Spirit will have nothing more to say through His Church.
Sola Scriptura shuts down the ALL the truth necessary for salvation because it rejects Sacred Tradition and Apostolic Authority in the Catholic Church.
These two verses are evidence that the Church is guided infallibly in the Spirit of Truth WITHOUT the Bible.
GALATIANS
Problem # 55 for Sola Scriptura –
In 2nd Timothy 2:2 we read:
2: “And the things which thou hast heard of me by many witnesses, the same commend to faithful men, who shall be fit to teach others also.”
This is evidence that the Bible is not enough. There would be men who are fit to teach others what is required of us in the Gospels. If the Bible was self-sufficient there would be no need to send out men to teach others.
EPHESIANS
Problem # 56 for Sola Scriptura –
Not all things that Jesus taught and said were recorded in Scripture.
And in Mark 4:34 we read:
34: “And without parable he did not speak unto them; but apart, he explained all things to his disciples.”
In Mark 6:34 we read:
34: “As he landed he saw a great throng, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.”
These verses are Scriptural evidence that everything Jesus taught is not recorded in Scripture. And it is evidence that Old Testament Scripture was not self-sufficient anymore than New Testament Scripture.
And since Jesus took the Apostles apart, and Scripture does not record what Jesus told them, it is therefore impossible for Protestants to determine what Jesus taught the Apostles in private is not contained in the Sacred Tradition and Apostolic Traditions of the Church.
They cannot reject Apostolic Authority without rejecting what Jesus told the Apostles in private. We have the evidence of what the Apostles implement by means of Sacred Tradition and by means of their teaching authority.
The fact that Jesus taught outside the text in the Bible means there is an authority outside of the Bible that applies to what He taught them which they possess.
PHILIPPIANS
Problem # 57 for Sola Scriptura –
Protestants cannot claim that Catholics attack Sola Scriptura and Protestantism without a proper understanding of both. There is no objective standard in Protestantism so the Protestant complaint is an invalid complaint.
Not only is Sola Scriptura unbiblical, there is no definition of Sola Scriptura in the Bible. In fact, one Protestant will have a view of Sola Scriptura that will work for them but will not work for the next Protestant. Not only do their doctrines vary, but the very the standard by which they measure doctrine is completely subjective. This means Sola Scriptura itself is purely subjective.
Protestant reasoning is circular reasoning. It is to say Scripture is self-interpreting and then claim whoever disagrees with the way any given Protestant interprets any given verse in Scripture got it wrong. And it goes on Ad-Infinitum.
COLOSSIANS
Problem # 58 for Sola Scriptura –
Protestants cannot claim that Sola Scriptura does not claim the Bible is the sole source of revelation.
Martin Luther said:
“There is only one source of faith, and that is the Holy Scripture. Each Christian conscience must interpret Scripture for itself under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.”
Therefore, a Protestant cannot say they accept the fact of “Revealed Truth” AND “Sola Scriptura” as two distinct sources of revealed truth. Protestants’ cannot determine authentic “INVISIBLE Revealed Truth” as opposed to “INVISIBLE Revealed Truth” that is NOT authentic. This means they must rely on Scripture as the only source by which they claim to know revealed truth because Scripture is the only source of Revealed truth IN THE FORM OF VISIBLE TEXT.
No amount of back-pedaling or side-stepping can hide the fact that Sola Scriptura is anything other than religious relativism.
1st THESSALONIANS
Problem # 59 for Sola Scriptura –
Protestants cannot claim that Scripture contains the entire counsel of God concerning all things necessary unto which nothing can be added or taken away by the spirit or traditions of men.
Protestant declarations such as this can never do away with the fact that every Protestant interprets Scripture subjectively. And every time anyone interprets Scripture apart from the Catholic Church they add to the depths of darkness and division in Christianity. Protestants’ add to the errors of the Reformers and perpetuate the myth of Sola Scriptura.
Even if they interpret a verse in Scripture and conclude what the Catholic concludes, there is nothing that holds them bound to that interpretation. They can change their mind about it today and be divided against what they held as doctrine yesterday.
The difference between the Catholic and the non-Catholic who interprets any verse in Scripture to mean the same thing is that the Catholic has internal assent to that which Christ established in His Church. The non-Catholic lacks not only internal assent to what Christ established, but an outside authority to determine their interpretation is correct.
In Matthew 23:25 Christ said:
25: “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you make clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but within you are full of rapine and uncleanness.”
The outside of the cup is like the Protestant who may interpret a given verse to say what a Catholic says it means, but the inside of the cup is the Protestant who lacks internal cleanliness. They refuse to accept the fact that there has to be an authority outside of the Bible that tells us the Bible is the inspired Word of God to begin with.
2nd THESSALONIANS
Problem # 60 for Sola Scriptura –
Protestants’ cannot claim they have an inward illumination of their heart, mind, and conscience by the Spirit of God who provides the necessary “saving understanding” revealed in the Word of God as to how we are to worship God and how His Church is to be governed.
Such appeals are made to convince the one saying it as well as the one hearing it, that unity has been realized in the world of Protestantism. Nothing of the sort is real.
There is the ever present attempt to justify rebellion by trying to make rebellion sound mysterious and therefore of God. One such attempt would read like this:
“The sufficiency of Scripture is clearly asserted in the Bible, but it’s a sufficiency that is defined in a very careful manner, and we must be in tune with the Spirit of God to discern correctly”.
Provide the evidence the one making such a claim is correctly in-tune with the Spirit of God that they may discern in a very careful manner.
Protestants’ cannot provide the evidence because it is not there.
1st TIMOTHY
Problem # 61 for Sola Scriptura –
Protestants’ attempt to turn the words of The Early Church Fathers against the Catholic Church, but this is an impossible task. The Early Church Fathers were in fact, Catholic.
One Church Father they like to use is Saint Augustine but his teaching is clear that the concept of Sola Scriptura can never be justified by what he taught.
An example of how Augustine affirmed that Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the teaching Authority of the Church are ONE, as opposed to Sola Scriptura, is found in his writing against the Manichean heresy. Commenting on the epistle of Manicheus he said:
“For in the Catholic Church, not to speak of the purest wisdom, to the knowledge of which a few spiritual men attain in this life, so as to know it, in the scantiest measure, indeed, because they are but men, still without any uncertainty … the consent of the peoples and nations keep me in Church, so does HER AUTHORITY, inaugurated by miracles, nourished by hope, enlarged by love, established by age. The SUCCESSION OF PRIESTS keeps me, beginning from THE VERY SEAT OF THE APOSTLE PETER to whom the Lord, after His resurrection, gave it in charge to feed his sheep, DOWN TO THE PRESENT EPISCOPATE: (Augustine then begins the epistle of Manicheus)
“Manicheus, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the providence of God the Father. These are the wholesome words from the perennial and living fountain.”
Augustine stops and says:
“Now, if you please, patiently give heed to my inquiry. I do not believe Manicheus to be an apostle of Christ. Do not, I beg you, be enraged and begin to curse. For you know that it is my rule to believe none of your statements without consideration. Therefore I ask, who is this Manicheus? You will reply, An Apostle of Christ. I do not believe it. Now you are at a loss what to say or do; for you promised to give knowledge of truth, and here you are forcing me to believe what I have no knowledge of. Perhaps you will read the gospel to me, and will attempt to find there a testimony to Manicheus. But should you meet with a person not yet believing in the gospel, how would you reply to him were he to say, I do not believe? For MY PART, I should NOT BELIEVE THE GOSPEL EXCEPT MOVED BY THE AUTHORITY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. So when those on whose authority I have consented to believe in the gospel tell me not to believe in Manicheus, how can I BUT CONSENT?” (C. Epis Mani 5, 6)
Another example of how Augustine appealed to the authority of the Catholic Church rather than to his own subjective interpretation of Scripture regarding the authenticity and validity of the Gospels is found in his writing to “Faustus 8:5” :
"The authority of our Scriptures, strengthened by the consent of so many nations, and confirmed by the succession of the Apostles, bishops and councils, is against you"
Augustine and all the Early Church Fathers affirmed and reaffirmed Catholic doctrine in light of the Sacred Tradition of the Church.
We have another example of Augustine affirming the fact that Scripture we must interpreted in light of Tradition and the teaching authority of the Church, and never apart from them.
In his Letter 164 to Evodius of Uzalis we read:
"Wherever this tradition comes from, we must believe that the Church has not believed in vain, even though the express authority of the canonical scriptures is not brought forward for it."
Augustine also says:
"To be sure, although on this matter, we cannot quote a clear example taken from the canonical Scriptures, at any rate, on this question, we are following the true thought of Scriptures when we observe what has appeared good to the universal Church which the authority of these same Scriptures recommends to you." (C. Cresconius I:33)
In his Sermon, 117:6, Augustine says:
“It is obvious; the faith allows it, the Catholic Church approves; it is true.”
He also says:
"Will you, then, so love your error, into which you have fallen through adolescent overconfidence and human weakness, that you will separate yourself from these leaders of Catholic unity and truth, from so many different parts of the world who are in agreement among themselves on so important a question, one in which the essence of the Christian religion involved..?" (C. Julian 1:7, 34)
2nd TIMOTHY
Problem # 62 for Sola Scriptura –
It is time to examine what lurks beneath the surface of Sola Scriptura that gives rise to the evil that it is.
Sola Scriptura is agnosticism at the core which, in the end, becomes atheism.
Due to the fact that Protestants’ reject any authority outside of the Bible they render impossible any objective, definitive knowledge of revealed truth. This forces the believer inward to subjectivism. And this forces a man to make his conclusions about faith according to what he “feels” inside rather than anything objective and outside of himself.
The Protestant assertion that there is no authority outside of the Bible is a projection from his own ego that says there is no authority outside of him self. And to cover his masquerade he makes the claim he is being guided by the Holy Spirit in the spirit of self-deception.
Now that his standard that determines objective doctrine is now measured by what he “feels”, which in and of itself is contrary to the concept of Sola Scriptura, he feels free to believe any interpretation of Scripture is authenticated by “self” while claiming the bible is self-authenticating. He is a usurper of Scripture and true revelation.
This means the senses of man now enter into the mix of what determines authentic revelation and in so doing the Protestant shuts down any path of being able to recognize an authority other than the Bible is required to determine objective dogmas and definitions.
Protestants’ will tell us there can be no authority outside of the Bible, but they now become that authority outside of the Bible that wants to tell us what any given verse in Scripture means, being guided, of course, by the Holy Spirit.
This forces the believer to reduce his knowledge of God to a mere natural knowledge of God, but it cuts him off from the God of revelation.
This opens up the door to a panacea of problems.
The primary problem is that the Protestant shuts down any knowledge of God’s intervention in time and place so that Revelation can never be part of historical reality and known with any certainty because these events took place before Scripture is ever written about them. And herein we see the nature of Sola Scriptura is that of Agnosticism. If there is no authority outside of Scripture there cannot be any authority outside of the Bible to confirm what these events mean by way of Salvation. Protestants’, therefore, use agnosticism to insert subjective interpretations into Scripture, very often for material gain. They will even establish a new denomination and happily collect 10% of everyone’s income.
The Catholic Church has formally condemned the Protestant claim that there is no authority outside of the Bible. What is purported to be guidance from the Holy Spirit as proclaimed by Protestants is nothing more than a mingling of man’s distorted reason and what he feels about any given verse in Scripture, and therefore he makes the Holy Spirit in his own image.
Revealed Truth is “knowable” and it has a valid place in the knowledge of man, but it does not proceed from within man. It comes to him from without in the same manner that certainty about Scripture does not come from within the Bible but from that which determined it to be the Bible which, in fact, is an authority outside of the Bible, namely, the Catholic Church.
Sola Scriptura, therefore, says that Revealed Truth cannot be known by man as coming from God.
This, in turn, shuts down man’s ability to worship God as He deserves, and this shuts down any true knowledge of what is necessary to be saved.
Now rendered impotent in the spiritual order, the Protestant must turn to something that has the appearance of religion but is not of the nature of revealed truth, and he must do this to convince himself he has not abandoned true faith. He must now give himself over to the Natural Law which was meant to predispose man towards revealed truth he now turns the Natural Law against Revealed Truth because he will not admit anything outside of the Bible to authoritative but himself.
The Protestant is now drawn towards an understanding of religious experience that roots and locks him into his own subjective, internal experience of private inspiration which proceeds from him as mere private interpretation. But he is now locked in battle with the Holy Spirit who is telling other Protestants contrary things about the same verses in Scripture.
Man’s natural ability to know of God as a fact by means of his reason now becomes superior to the God of Revelation because the Protestant does not admit of any certainty outside of the Bible, a book which cannot authenticate itself or speak for itself.
The Protestant will digress at this point and will transition from agnosticism into practical atheism because in declaring there can be no authority outside of the Bible he is declaring there can be no God of Revealed truth that is knowable.
Once the Protestant reaches this point he demands that others prove him wrong and he calls all men to embrace Sola Scriptura in order that he may reduce them and cut them off from the nature of revealed truth to do battle with them on the battlefield of subjectivism. He does all of this in an attempt to shield him self from anything that can tear the mask off his masquerade.
This allows the Protestant to go even further. It allows them to corrupt a proper understanding of revealed truth from a historical perspective. A subjective understanding of history which claims there is no authority outside of the Bible renders salvation history meaningless because any event which occurred before it was penned in text, no becomes subject to whatever the Protestant wishes it to mean. So, for example, if the Protestant wishes to determine Jesus is not God, but a mere perfect creature, Jesus became a man to be an advocate of man to show him a better path, but not a messiah to take away our sins.
Adherents of Sola Scriptura will transition from claiming there can be no authority outside of the Bible to professing there can be nothing known about God by way of Revealed Truth. They are at war with the God of Revealed Truth while claiming to be true followers of Jesus Christ. This renders them at odds not only with a proper understanding of Revealed Truth, but with Scripture itself of which they claim to be the most ardent defenders. They are set against the authority and nature of the Church that Jesus Christ established.
Having absolved themselves of producing anything outside of Scripture and the divisions they cause, they think they have effectively silenced any opposition. But, in reality, they have become imbued with the disposition and character of atheists.
Those who embrace Sola Scriptura attack all that is divine which in the end becomes an attack of the most Sacred Person of Jesus Christ. And this attack extends to the most sacred mysteries of His life, death, resurrection, and His Ascension into Heaven all of which have been assaulted in one way or another by the principle of Sola Scriptura.
TITUS
Problem # 63 for Sola Scriptura –
Protestants’ reduce our understanding of revealed truth to a search that begins and ends within themselves, and nothing external to themselves.
Even when we demonstrate to Protestants it is impossible to claim the Bible speaks for itself, they dismiss facts as though they do not matter. They become hell bent on shutting down an understanding of Scripture by means of the Catholic Church alone at all costs. It is insufferable to them that God should establish an authority that they cannot be; an authority outside of the Bible that is not them. It would destroy them where they stand and therefore their heels are set against the Catholic Church.
But since they will not have facts they will turn to their own fabrications which are the man made doctrines they produce as a result of interpreting Scripture apart from the Church.
As a result, the Living Gospel becomes a mere projection of his fabrications onto Scripture. What the Protestant fails to realize is that since he claims there is no authority outside of the Bible he has no access to the internal reality of what determines it to be inspired of God. It is like a strongbox he cannot penetrate to obtain an objective, definitive understanding of anything.
This means his understanding of religion as being “alive” is now found inside of man who is alive, and since man is alive, he concludes his subjective understanding of Scripture is a new insight into Scripture regardless of whether or not his interpretation is correct. All that matters is that his view of Scripture is alive within himself. This means religion now becomes measured by the life of man rather than by God. And this open us the door to the evolution of dogma and an assault of the very person of Jesus Christ as we shall see later on.
However, when a Protestant measures the “life of religion”, and therefore “the life of revealed truth” against himself simply because he is alive, he gives birth to what is known as the principle of “religious immanence”. This is the notion that religion is alive because man is alive. And since Protestants’ reject any authority outside of the Bible, they now regard themselves to be God in relation to the Bible, pretending to speak as not only an authority outside of the Bible, but as one who all others need to hear from his own lips what is definitive about any given verse in Scripture. They make themselves equal to Jesus Christ, but in the world of Protestantism we see numerous people pretending to be His equal but squarely at odds with each other over Scripture.
Sola Scriptura gives birth to “Vital Phenomenon” which is the Protestant notion that any “religious experience”, any religious interpretation, regardless of what Christian denomination we speak of, is valid because religious experience falls into the category of “religious immanence” because man who is a religious being is alive. But this does not work out in reality, because we see Protestants who are living out their “religious experience” at odds with each other over the very thing they claim has no outside authority, namely, the Bible. But in their happy little deluded world they will not drop their façade, and they will permit other Protestants to keep their views so long as they can keep their own. They simply agree to disagree and this would render the Christian world into a kingdom so divided against itself it would be laid low to the ground. And all of this is because the Protestant will not submit to any authority other than himself.
To be clear, the Protestant defines religion as “nothing more than what makes a man feel religious.” That is the bottom line criteria. And, in fact, this is what the Protestant must claim gives rise to religion because he has cut himself off from the world of objective revelation.
We must now ask a question. Where does the Protestant think a “religious experience” comes from, since they reject any authority outside of the Bible?
Protestants’ believe a “religious experience” springs from a “necessity” or an “impulse” from “within the heart of man”, and that it is a “movement” which comes “from the subconscious” within man. But the Protestant will tell us this impulse lays hidden and dormant within the subconscious until some “need” arises to “feel religious.”
In short, the “religious experience” for a Protestant is “sentimentality” and nothing more. As a result, the Protestant holds to the view that “knowledge of religion” does not take place in the “conscious intellect” because such an experience would be objective and knowable to all. This would make the experience measured by what is objective and Protestants would risk being exposed for the subjectivists that they are. Therefore, since they reject any authority outside of the Bible as a knowable fact, they claim objective knowledge of revealed truth cannot take place in the intellect, and therefore they reject God from the “knowledge of religion.”
God is the “object of religion”, but if man rejects God and considers himself to be God in the fashion of Protestantism, and according to the principles of Sola Scriptura, man now becomes “the author of religion”. And as a result, the Protestant can only conclude that “faith”, which is the basis and foundation of all religion, must now be defined as “a need for the divine” which comes from within man which only man can now satisfy. So, to the Protestant, man is now “the author of faith, the object of faith, and the one who completes his own faith, all within himself”. Therefore, the Protestant believes he is accountable only to himself for his understanding of Scripture, being guided, of course, by the Holy Spirit; always guided by the Holy Spirit.
This is why the Protestant refuses to acknowledge the fact of God which is demonstrable even in “Natural Theology” points to an authority outside of the Bible to speak for the Bible.
The Protestant simply does not want the knowledge of religious truth to reside in the “conscious intellect” because it means Sola Scriptura crashes. And this is why they refuse to meet the God who comes to them outside of the Bible by means of the Catholic Church. He is knowable through the Church but they refuse this in their conscious intellect. This is why they try to justify their view of faith which resides in the “unknowable subconscious”. Protestants’ are modernists who like spoiled children take their ball home with them when they are losing the game they like to play.
They go within themselves after taking with them what they have seen in the world with their senses, and then they shut their eyes to outside reality. And they let the “forms, shapes, and colors” of what they have seen mingle with what comes from their “subconscious”. And from this mingling comes their “religious feelings” which they now call a “religious experience”.
And it is at this very point that the Protestant will “subjectively interpret” what they have seen “according to what they feel”, and whatever they interpret this “religious experience” to mean they will now regard it to be a “religious revelation”, or an authoritative understanding of any given verse in Scripture. And this “interpretation” becomes their own revelation and it becomes the object of their faith. And in so doing they interpret Scripture to their own destruction. It is by this means the Protestants’ regards man to be the “author of faith”, and therefore the object of his own faith” as determined by whatever religious “experience” he can produce, as we shall see in more detail. Protestantism can never truly say Jesus is the object of their faith because Protestantism cannot produce anything definitive about Jesus which they can all agree upon. And that is because they make Jesus in their own image. Protestantism is plastic Christianity.
But there is more to consider. Since “religious truths” in the world of Protestantism are “internal” because they are subjective only, these “religious truths” are not allowed to be present in the “conscious intellect” in any objective intellectual manner. The Protestant completely removes anything “objective” in the religious experience from his “conscious intellect” which means “religious truths” are forever tied to the “subconscious” for the Protestant. And this is the dilemma within Sola Scriptura that forces the Protestant to conclude that “religious truths” can only be “symbolic” because if he reaches out to hold religious truths as something solid and objective, they elude him as they sink back into his subconscious. Therefore, the religious experience for him can only be measured by what he feels his “religious experience means”. And this is what gives birth to the Protestant view of “symbolic faith”. And due to the fact that feelings are always changing, the Protestant will conclude that “faith” is always changing and therefore, forever evolving.
And when we consider that relationships between things constitute what we refer to as phenomena, the Protestant will turn away from the fact it is impossible to know anything definitive about Scripture unless there is an authority outside of the Bible that is infallible. And that authority is the Catholic Church.
But, the Protestant will stubbornly turn away from what they intuitively know, and they fly to the first impulse of “religious feeling” within them as they turn away from what their own reason is telling them, namely, they have cut themselves off from the God of Revealed Truth. And they run into the darkness to greet what they “feel” which comes from an impulse in their subconscious and say: “Let this be my light”. And they call darkness light and make themselves susceptible to Satan who appears as an angel of light. Sola Scriptura is a world of “enlightenment” in which all is darkness.
At this point, Protestants’ will set about to protect their turf of “religious sentimentality” by putting limits on their understanding of “objective knowledge in religion”. Since the Protestant turns away from any authority outside of the Bible, and since he claims nothing outside of the Bible is “knowable as an objective fact in the conscious intellect”, he has placed self-imposed limits on the “God of revelation, the “external visible world” and the “internal conscious world”. The Protestant will then claim anything beyond these limits is “unknowable”.
He will then tell us there is no experience in the “conscious intellect” that can account for this “need for the divine” that is found within man. And this is the direct result of the fact that he rejects any authority outside of the Bible as “knowable in the conscious intellect”. Therefore, he becomes utterly and pitifully dependent upon what he “feels about religion” to resolve whatever it is he is trying resolve in his life according to his own version of “faith and interpretation of revealed truth.”
And therefore, this need in the “subconscious intellect” becomes the object of his faith where he meets his “own divine reality”. One can only pity the Protestant at this point. This is where the Protestant defines “his faith” and it is what he regards to be “the beginning of religion itself.” God is not in his equation. The Protestant has once again embraced the temptation of Adam and the error that he is divine in his own understanding of Scripture. And this opens the door to endless errors and deep blindness about how he understands his own nature and the world around him, and Scripture itself.
But the Protestant goes even further in his folly. He perverts the Natural Law which is a basic and innate awareness of right and wrong in each person that resides in the “conscience”. He will then tie his “conscience” to his “understanding of religion”. And because he now regards man to be divine through “immanence” having cut himself off from the God of revealed truth as the author and finisher of his own faith, he regards his “conscience” to be a “divine right” to determine the limits of conscience. And he therefore appeals to the “supremacy of conscience” in matters of religion that he may turn away from the fact that God is “knowable in Scripture” only if there is an authority outside of the Bible which his own reason tells him he is obligated to accept.
This turns “conscience” which was given by God to help man along the way into self-abuse which manifests itself in all manner of corruption and error. Conscience was designed to be a man’s friend, but the Protestant would turn it into the enemy by claiming that the boundaries of conscience are limitless. And he regards his “new understanding of conscience” to be a sufficient guide to proper living as he now uses it to justify immorality and all corruption while claiming to be Christian.
And in all of this, even though he will deny it, the Protestant will tell us that “revelation” is simply mans “need for religion”, and the “the divine manifestation” is actuated by some “religious feeling” within his own nature. And from this, he will conclude that whatever man can experience in what is “knowable” but not objective in the “conscious intellect” is how he defines religion. This is how religion is resolved for him. The Protestant starts and ends with himself and therefore regards himself to be divine. He is the need for God and He is the God who resolves his own need. He is the revealer of his own need for God and he is the God who reveals himself to himself to resolve his own needs. In other words, he is full of himself and has no room for God.
And Protestants’ wish to establish what they have corrupted and make it the standard in all religions. They regard their corruption to be on the same level and equal footing of God who actually intervenes in time and space, and they demand that everyone submit to their corruption. They even have the audacity to demand they have the same supreme authority of the Church that Jesus Christ founded. They spurn the Church in her capacity to teach and her authority to legislate, particularly when it comes to sacred liturgy and all disciplinary action. They are rebels without a reason.
PHILOMON
Problem # 64 for Sola Scriptura –
The Protestant will now proceed to use their view of religion to “critique history” and “revelation”, but they are cut off from objective reality in these matters and want to make what is purely “subjective” the measure of both history and revelation. This is why in the world of Protestantism you find great disagreement about the historical Jesus.
What Protestants deemed as a “matter of private conscience with a divine right” in how they formed their view of religion now spills over and becomes “the standard” which they wish to impose on the “conscience” of everyone else in the matter of religion. And they do this all by a simple “fiat” that proceeds from their arrogance unlike the “fiat” of a humble virgin through whom God came into the world.
And keep in mind, when the Protestant talks about what is “unknowable” he does not present what is “unknowable” as an object of faith because it would be absurd to say “Let’s have faith in what is unknowable”. He must have something to present to make his view of faith appear credible. He must have some working elements “that are not unknown” as the “elements of his view of faith”. And that “something” is his subjective interpretation of Scripture.
But such a man has shut down his reason by which he knows there has to be an authority outside of the Bible. So when he claims “what is unknown” in matters of faith can serve as the basis of faith, he says faith cannot have any association to the infinite God of whom we have glimpses through what He has revealed. The Protestant will simply not accept any authority outside of the Bible, or anything in the “conscious intellect” as knowable and objective in matters of faith, simply because he has cut himself off from all objective means to know anything about Christianity in a definitive manner. It’s that simple.
Yet, we will find the Protestant pontificate “the unknown”. This is like being in a room full of people and saying, “Everyone who is not here, raise your hand”. But, the Protestant will press forward with the absurd because he has designs. He needs the “unknown” as a tool because he wishes to associate it with “phenomenon” in order to corrupt the realm of Science and History.
The Protestant, for his own purposes, will regard phenomenon to be an act of nature containing within itself something mysterious; or it may be a man whose character, actions, and words “apparently” cannot be reconciled with the ordinary laws of science and history.
His “faith” which is attracted by the “unknowable” unites itself with the phenomenon which cannot yet be fully explained. Because the Protestant rejects any authority outside of the Bible, he will give the whole of his self to the phenomenon so the phenomena and the Protestant permeate each other which results in a “merging” that now has its own life. And from this, two principles follow within Sola Scriptura itself.
The first principle is a type of “transfiguration” of the phenomenon. The Protestant elevates the experience of the phenomenon above its own true condition so the phenomena will become adaptable to whatever the Protestant wishes to infuse into it. And when he has done this, he will call his interpretation of the experience a “true revelation” and the object of “divine faith”. But since the Protestant lives in the land of practical atheism, even though he won’t admit it, he will then project all that he does “within himself” onto the Church and then accuse Catholics of doing this very thing in matters of revelation and an understanding of history. But such a man is blind to the fact that the Church stands with the God whom can be known, and his attacks on how the Church understands history become the equivalent of someone who is inebriated and says the world is upside down.
The Church is in union with the God of “objective revelation” because it was made by God to be that very authority not only outside of the Bible, but the very authority which gave us the Bible to begin with.
And the Protestant does the same in the second principle. He “disfigures faith” because he wants to define “faith” to be a “phenomena” which is independent of the circumstances of place and time when it serves his purposes. And its purpose is served when he uses the “first principle” (we just mentioned) to accuse the Church of attributing things to Jesus that he claims were not real according to the time and place in which Jesus lived. And he makes these charges through the corrupt lens of his view of reality. He wants to “transfigure” the divine person of Jesus Christ into a human person and therefore corrupt the real history of the Lord of History, Jesus Christ. This is the “second principle” of “disfiguration” at work. The Protestant poisons everything he touches.
The Protestant will then take the second “principle of disfiguration” and paint history with his own disfiguration of history, all the while, accusing the Church of doing the very thing that he does. But the Church is blameless in the face of his charges.
And the Protestant will repeatedly accuse the Church of using the “second principle of disfiguration” in relation to everything which the Church teaches has a divine association to God in the context of history. And he will say the further back in time we go the more we can see what he terms “the disfigurement of history” regarding the Catholic Church, its dogma, and its doctrines.
The absurdity and irony is that these charges come from a Protestant who understands faith to be an “interpretation of a phenomena” that is linked to the “invisible” because it hides in his “subconscious” and therefore is “unknowable in his conscious intellect” which is the result of an “impulse” that produced a “religious feeling” which can never be “objective revelation”. And this is because he is firm in his conclusion there can be no authority outside of the Bible. And to Protestant, this means faith is a religious feeling which he calls “unknowable as an objective reality in the conscious intellect” because he does not have access to the subconscious. And then he concludes that revelation is merely “symbolic” of God in man, in whom man has faith in himself, and his “faith” is forever tied to the subconscious and therefore the Protestant has no reason or access to ever claim objectivity to anyone outside of himself in matters of faith or interpretation of Scripture.
This is the man that tells the Church how it must view history. This is the man who “believes” in the “soul of the universe”, some “divine invisible principle” which he cannot demonstrate as existing in observable phenomenon, but nevertheless, he uses to justify his “Immanent” view of reality. He allows this for himself, but this same man, the Protestant, mocks the Church when it speaks of the God of Revelation as a fact by means of an authority outside of the Bible. The Protestant is a living contradiction.
Therefore, from these two principles of “transfiguration” and “disfiguration” the Protestant produces “two laws” which he then unites with his “third principle” which is “agnosticism”. And these “three principles” (a type of unholy trinity) constitute the very foundation of the Protestants’ view of Historical Critical Analysis.
Their method can be illustrated by something we can touch upon concerning the Person of Christ.
There are Protestants who claim that Jesus is not God according to how they understand and interpret Scripture. And, according to the Principles of Sola Scriptura, they are free to tell us that. In the Person of Christ they find nothing of the divine in his life from a historical perspective. Since they reject the divine in Christ, they are left only with the human Jesus whose life they measure according to science and historical data because they claim there is no authority outside of the Bible by which to measure His life. And here we see their “three principles” at work:
- In virtue of their foundational principle which is “agnosticism”, anything in history that is suggestive of the divine in the person of Jesus Christ must be rejected.
- Then, according to their second principle, the historical Person of Christ was unduly “transfigured” over time by the faith of those who wanted him to be divine, so therefore, everything that raises Him above the historical human condition must be removed.
- And last but not least, their third principle which claims that the Person of Christ has been “disfigured” by the faith of believers in Him requires that everything about Him that is not in keeping with the character, circumstances, and education according to the time in which He lived must be discarded, and that includes what is said of His deeds and Words.
This is the absurd reasoning of a Protestant who has interpreted Scripture to say Jesus is perhaps a perfect creature, but He is not God. But nonetheless, this is the approach to Historical Criticism by such a Protestant.
If one were to follow these three principles to their own “logical conclusion”, Protestants’ cannot claim history ever happened beyond their own memory because they did not “experience it as phenomena”. And according to their terms, it must be presumption for them to speak of history in the light of “historical phenomena” because they didn’t “experience it as an observable phenomenon.”
And this means they must rely on “things that they see” to make conclusions about the facts of history that are “external” to their own experience of phenomena according to the time in which they live. But they will not allow the same when it comes to the Bible. At all costs, there can be no authority outside of the Bible. For such a Protestant, “things that he sees” cannot lead to the conclusion that there has to be an authority outside of the Bible because this is an authority external to their own authority.
Therefore, according to the Protestant, “Religious Sentiments” come from “vital immanence” which is the search for God beginning and ending within man himself, and nothing external to himself.
And the Protestant will proceed to tells us that “religious sentimentality” within man is what produces the “seed/germ” of all religion, and that “religious sentimentality” can explain everything that has ever come and gone, or that will ever be in matters of religion.
And in their blindness the Protestant proceeds to tell us that “Religious Sentimentality”, which was only rudimentary and almost without form when it was first felt within a man, gradually matured under the influence of the blind doctrine of “Religious Immanence” (the notion that religion is alive because man is alive, therefore man is God). This leads the Protestant to say “Religious Sentimentality is alive”. But to hide their absurdity they want the obstinacy in their heart and mind to be defined as “Mysterious.”
Therefore, the Protestant concludes that the origin of all religion, even supernatural religion, is merely a development of “religious sentimentality”. And in the end, this is why they cannot find an authority outside of the Bible. And they tell us the Catholic Church is no exception to this. In their minds the Church is no different and no better than any other religion. For them, all “religious sentimentality” and “religious experience” comes from “Vital Immanence” which is the search for God beginning and ending within man himself, and nothing external to himself. And in utter blasphemy they even make the claim that “Vital Immanence” applies to Jesus Christ just as much as it does to anyone else. They think they are honoring Him, or that they are generous in their assessment of His humanity by saying he was a perfect human specimen, the likes of which has never been seen, or ever will be seen. They patronize him to their own demise.
And sadly, in the day of relativism, many are Catholic in name only. The world of Protestantism is infecting the body, and the sacrilegious assertions and lamentable heresies and ramblings come not only from the babbling and foolish mouths of Protestants, but they now come from Catholics as well.
And tragically, the world of Protestantism has
come to a state far beyond that. Protestants’ have gone so far as to say that our most holy Catholic Religion emanated from the human nature of Jesus Christ, claiming that He is not divine. They tell us that our religion sprang forth spontaneously and in its entirety from some “Religious Sentimentality” that Jesus Christ experienced within Himself.
Let us be clear. There is no more perfidious, destructive attack on the Holy Catholic Faith than this. It is a satanic attack on the entire supernatural order. It is for this reason that Sola Scriptura must be seen as a raw, satanic concept.
For anyone to claim that man cannot come to the God by the authority in the Catholic Church which resides outside of the Bible, and that man can come to a definitive understanding of Scripture by means of Sola Scriptura, such a man acts as an agent of Satan, whether or not he knows it.
HEBREWS
Problem # 65 for Sola Scriptura –
According to the teaching of the Protestant, the intellect plays a role, or has a part in the “act of faith”, but the object of faith can never reside in the conscious intellect as objectively knowable. And it is important we understand their attack.
We can see their attack on the Church in this way. We have seen the role of “Religious Sentimentality” in the way the Protestant interprets Scripture, but we must be clear, “Religious Sentimentality” is not “knowledge”. Therefore, in the Protestant understanding of how “God” manifests himself to man, the manifestation comes to us from man, not God, in a manner that is “indistinct and confused” because it is not knowledge. It is only “Religious Sentimentality”. Believing this to be the case, the Protestant can hardly perceive the manifestation due to the nature of the manifestation and the fact that he has cut himself off from an authority outside of the Bible.
The Protestant will then tell us that a “necessary ray of light” should be shined upon the “feeling of Religious Sentimentality” that “God may be discovered in the midst of the religious feelings” so that God can be set apart from the feelings. And they tell us the task of the intellect is to do that very thing. They will tell us the purpose, or the “office” of the intellect, is to reflect upon the “religious feeling” and analyze it.
At this point, the Protestant will tell us that once man has completed his reflection, having sufficiently analyzed his own “religious feeling”, he will begin to transform what he feels into mental pictures of the “Vital Phenomena” which he will then express with words. And since the Protestant regards “Vital Phenomena” to be any “religious experience” regardless of what religion we speak of, “vital phenomena” falls into the category of “religious immanence” because all men are alive. Therefore every religious experience in any religion becomes a valid living religious experience because man is alive, and his “Religious Sentimentality” therefore becomes a living religion. This is why the Protestant is fond of saying “the religious man must ponder his faith”. This is why the Protestant fails to understand Mary who authentically pondered revelation in her own heart.
Continuing, the Protestant tells us that when the intellect encounters “Religious Sentimentality” the intellect will focus on it. And after the intellect looks at the “religious sentimental feeling” the intellect will produce a new mental image of the “religious feeling”, much like a painter would do when he restores an old painting that was perishing with age.
This is a primary approach of Protestantism concerning the intellect. In Sola Scriptura, the intellect has two functions. First, by a “spontaneous act” it expresses a concept which it produced from analyzing “Religious Sentimentality” in the form of a very simple statement.
Then, upon reflection and deeper consideration, or as they say, by elaborating on the thought, the intellect expresses another, “second statement” which has been built upon the initial “simple statement”. The Protestant tells us the “second statement” which came from the “first simple statement” is more perfect and distinct, and that the process keeps building in this manner. And they tell us that some of these statements will finally develop to the point that the Supreme Magisterium of the Church will give its seal of approval to some statement that evolved in this manner. And the Protestant claims this is the nature and development of what “constitutes a dogmatic statement” not only for themselves, but for the Catholic Church.
We have now reached one of the principle points in the Protestant system of thought, namely, the origin and nature of Dogma. On the one hand they tell us that the origin of Dogma comes from simple ideas, which, in a certain manner, are necessary for faith. But the Protestant will distinguish between “Dogma” and “Revelation”. And the reason he makes the distinction is because authentic revelation requires a clear manifestation of God in the “conscious intellect” that came from outside of the believer and outside of the Bible.
When considering this in light of authentic revelation, and an objective understanding of it, the Protestant will turn away from it and instead look at what he calls “the principle of transfiguration”, which according to the Protestant, produces Dogma.
This being the case, the Protestant will then tells us that in order to ascertain “the nature of dogma” we must first discover the relationship between the “religious formulas” which is the “subjective interpretation of the person who is interpreting his own religious feeling.”
And the Protestant will tell us that “religious formulas” (interpretation of the person) have no purpose other than to provide the “believer” with a means to account for the faith he holds “within himself”. The views of others do not matter to him. It is entirely subjective.
In the mind of the Protestant, these formulas (interpretations) therefore unite the believer to his faith. And when it comes to the matter of “faith”, his interpretations of his own “religious feelings” are “inadequate expressions” about the “object of his faith”. He cannot define the object of his faith in reality. All he can say is that he has “religious feelings” to confirm his interpretation of Scripture. But the reason his interpretations are inadequate is because when he goes to write down his formulas on the chalkboard of “his conscious intellect” he finds out the chalkboard is not solid, but instead is a “vapor” and his hand sinks through it into his “subconscious” where nothing can be written. And the religious feeling that comes from that vapor cannot write anything on the chalkboard that he can read. He can only “feel what is written but he cannot see what is written.”
And due to the fact that the Protestant shuts out an authority outside of the Bible, he does not even understand his own person, and he is left with no other alternatives but to claim that “formulas” are only “symbols” of faith, and that they can never express anything absolute, particularly as they relate to “External Revelation” that comes from God simply because he rejects the fact that God is objectively knowable in the conscious intellect by means of an authority that is outside of the Bible.
In the end, the Protestant ends up calling the results of his own interpretations “symbols” which are mere instruments he uses to express his own interpretation of his own “religious feelings”. It’s all about him. Surely, such a person is a most pitiful creature, puffed up in the insecurity that comes from open rebellion to make such foolish claims.
JAMES
Problem # 66 for Sola Scriptura –
This leads the Protestant to conclude that an evolutionary process is involved with Dogma, and all teachings of the Catholic Church, as well as his own, come into being in this manner.
Since the Protestant maintains that it is impossible for “symbols” to express absolute truth, he then turns and refers to his “symbols” as “images of truth”, and he requires these “images of truth” to conform to his own “Religious Feelings”. And as “instruments”, these “images of truth” now become “vehicles of truth”. And these “vehicles of truth” in like manner must conform to his “Religious Feelings.”
Now, understand there is one thing that the Protestant will embrace as an “absolute”, and that absolute would be “his religious feelings”. In reality, he has embraced a vapor that cannot serve him. And that is because the “nature of feelings” is such that they are always changing, from moment to moment, almost in an infinite way. And this means there is nothing absolute in his belief because there are an infinite amount of different religious feelings he may have as he passes through different phases of life. And as a result, this means his “beliefs” change according to the “formula” (interpretation of his feeling) that he chooses to interpret his “religious feeling.”
So the Protestant concludes that the “formula” which the Catholic Church calls Dogmas, must therefore be subject to change, just like the Sola Scriptura allows for change. Consequently, for the Protestant, everything that is determined to be “Religious Feelings” are always in a state of flux and subject to change.
And this is the method that Protestant uses to attack the authentic Dogma of the Catholic Church, her Sacred Tradition, her Authority, and her Infallibility. They want to make way for what they refer to as “the intrinsic evolution of dogma.” And when we examine the “dogma” and “doctrine” of the Protestant, we see an immense collection of clever arguments known as sophisms, but they are always flawed. They would use “sophisms” as a means to ruin and destroy all religion.
They tell us that Dogma is not only able to evolve, but that it must evolve and change according to their principles. In fact, their claim that Dogma must change is a primary deduction that comes from their principle of “vital immanence” which is nothing more than the search for God beginning and ending within man himself, and nothing external to himself, not even external to the Bible.
And as a result of this, simply because they are living individuals subject to change, their “religious formulas” (interpretations) must also be subject to change if they are to be “truly religious” and not “mere theological speculation”. For them, “religious interpretation” must be living and follow “Religious Feelings.”
But the Protestant will then tell us that “formulas” were “made” for “religious feelings,” especially if they are merely imaginations.
What they are claiming is this: a proper understanding of “formulas” has more to do with where the formula came from rather than the number or the quality of the formulas that the Protestant uses to interpret their “Religious Feelings”. For them, the necessary thing to understand is that “religious formulas” should conform to “religious feelings” and in the end they have moved away from objective interpretation of Scripture altogether.
And this means whenever a Protestant embraces “original religious formulas” to interpret his “religious feelings” he has sanctioned that particular formula in his heart, for the time being. And this means that “secondary formulas of interpretation”, and everything that comes from them, must also proceed under the guidance of whatever the Protestant may “feel” within his own heart.
And this means the Protestant holds the view that “religious formula” must adapt to the “personal faith” of the “believer” because they regard “religious formulas” to be alive in a living person who changes. This is what accounts for so much division in the world of Protestantism.
But they argue if their methods are not allowed, if adaptation is not allowed, then “religious formulas” have lost the value of their “power to interpret religious feelings”, and therefore the believer must change their “original formula” and embrace a new one to interpret the next “religious feeling” they have. Such is the world of the religious relativist; such is the world of Protestantism.
And since the lot and character of the “religious formulas” that Protestants’ embrace is so convoluted, it’s no wonder their understanding of “dogmatic formulas” is so corrupted and precarious. And because they view dogmatic formulas in such a corrupt way, there should be no surprise whatsoever that Protestants’ regard the Authentic Dogmas of the Catholic Church with such contempt and open disrespect.
But Protestants’ have the audacity to accuse the Church of taking the wrong road in the matter of Dogma. They accuse the Church of failing to have a proper understanding that distinguishes between what is “religious” and “moral”. And they make this claim accusing the Church of holding to its formula for Dogma while they would have religion to fall into ruin.
They are the blind leading the blind, inflated with a boastful ego. They have reached the heights of folly where they pervert the eternal concept of truth and the true nature of religious sentiment; and with their “new system” they have fallen under the influence of a blind and unchecked passion for novelty found in Sola Scriptura. And they give no thought at all of finding some solid foundation of truth. And while they despise the Holy and Apostolic Traditions of the Church, they embrace other vain, futile, uncertain doctrines that have been condemned by the Church. And in the height of their vanity they actually think they have found rest in an alleged ability to retain truth itself without error in their thinking. Blind guides they are, leading blind men.
1st PETER
Problem # 67 for Sola Scriptura –
It is time to look at the Protestant as a “believer.”
A true Philosopher can recognize the necessity of the divine reality of God as the object of faith. And the Philosopher knows this reality is not to be measured or affirmed as being true belief according to what he can feel within his heart. He will not shut out objective reality of faith and confine it to the sphere of “phenomena.”
But if you ask a Protestant what is the reason they “believe”, and what do they believe in, they will answer their belief is determined by the “personal experience of each individual.”
They fail miserably at Peters’ Counsel to be ready with a reason for the faith that is within you.
The following is how they propose to explain themselves. They will say:
“In the religious sense, one must recognize or admit a kind of intuition in the heart which puts man in immediate contact with the reality of God. This infuses such a persuasion of God’s existence and His action both within and without man that his conclusion that God exists rises above any need to prove this according to the scientific method.”
The Protestant will conclude this “intuition” is a real experience that surpasses all rational experience. And if anyone denies the reality of this experience, they claim the fault is in the person who fails to understand the experience, and the reason they fail to understand the experience, according to the Protestant, is because the person is not sufficiently moral to produce the experience. The Protestant believes that the evidence necessary to prove that one is a “believer” rests in whether or not they can produce a “religious experience.”
This understanding of “belief” in the “believer” has no connection to Catholic teaching. These errors, combined with those we have already mentioned, open the way for Atheism.
Some Protestants’ will actually claim in a confused and timid manner and others in a most open manner, that all religions are true. And it’s clear why they cannot say otherwise. Based on their theories which are all subjective, on what grounds could falsehood be part of any religion? Everything, according to them, is determined by what a person “feels”, and how they interpret their “Religious Feeling”. There are no standards they accept that are objective for everyone because Protestants’ deny absolutes in this area.
And anyone who disagrees with the Protestant will be told by them that any person or religion that holds to false things in Christianity, or in any religion for that matter, is due to the fact there was an “incorrect interpretation of religious feelings” that came about from an “incorrect formula” produced by the “conscious intellect.”
Protestants’ cannot have it both ways. If religion is determined by the “interpretation” (formula) of “Religious Feelings” that come from the “subconscious” within a person to meet the “conscious intellect” that is waiting to analyze the feeling which is done by producing a formula by which they may interpret the “feeling” that can never be an “absolute”, what then, gives a Protestant the right to come along at any point and accuse someone of falsely interpreting anything when others are using the very tools the Protestant supplied them to interpret their “feelings”!
Protestants’ will also try to make excuses for the differences of opinion that exist in their own ranks. They will tell us that “Religious Feelings” may be more or less perfect, more or less intense, but nevertheless they are all same in that they are all “Religious Feelings”. And if the “intellectual formula” is to be true it must respond to and obey the “Religious Feelings” according to the intellectual capacity of the believer. But the Protestant fails to see this does nothing to eliminate the relativism which is inherent in the Protestant concept of Religion and what it means to have faith.
And when it comes to conflict that is within different denominations and other religions, the most that Protestants’ will admit about Catholicism is that the Catholic Church has more truth because it is “more living”, and due to this it is more deserving of the name Christian than other religions because it corresponds more fully with the origins of Christianity which they regard to be void of all that is divine.
But what is most amazing is that there are Catholics and Priests, who, even though they act outraged over the errors of Protestants, in reality, they act as though they fully approve their errors. And we know this because they lavish praises and bestow high public honors on these teachers of falsehood. And their admiration of them goes beyond the admiration of the false teacher who may not be totally corrupt, but their admiration is now seen to approve the errors which these persons openly profess and propagate with all their power and ability to do so.
2nd PETER
Problem # 68 for Sola Scriptura –
There is yet another element in Sola Scriptura that is self-contradictory and absolutely contrary to Catholic teaching. And it’s this: When “personal experience” or “religious feeling” becomes the standard of defining “belief”, it becomes an attack on the “Tradition” of the Catholic Church which has been in place since the day Christ established the Church.
But the Protestant views “Tradition” as a communication of an “original religious experience within Jesus Christ Himself” which came to us down through the centuries through “preaching an intellectual formula”. Due to the fact that Protestants’ reject any authority outside of the Bible, their internal belief must maintain that in addition to the value this “experience represents” there comes a kind of fruitfulness, a kind of suggestion within the “believer” to produce or stimulate “religious feeling” within themselves. They will do this when their “religious feelings” grow sluggish so they can renew their “feeling” they once had to bring it back.
They also believe a person who does not yet believe can become a believer by suggesting, or producing a “religious feeling” within themselves. And they will, from that point on, be a believer because they know what it is to have a “religious experience”, and they know how to keep it alive from that point once having tasted it.
And the Protestant maintains this is how “religious experience” was preached to the nations, not only by those who preached in the past, but also among future generations through books and oral transmission from one to another.
There are times this false understanding of “religious experience” takes root and thrives, but at other times it withers and dies at once. But for the Protestant, to live is a proof of truth because for them life and truth are one and the same thing. This is another reason why some Protestants’ infer that all existing religions are equally true, because if they were not, there would be no one alive who is living out these religions.
So once again, the Protestant understanding of a “religious experience” produces the false conclusion that all existing religions are equally true simply because other religions have a “religious experience” within living people.
1st JOHN
Problem # 69 for Sola Scriptura –
There are Protestants who are more liberal leaning in the worst sense of the word. We need to look at how these Protestants understand the relationship between faith and science because some Protestants’ have misconceptions about this relationship. We find Protestants at both ends of the spectrum. Some are totally at odds with science while others consider the relationship between faith, science, and history all to be under the auspices of science. The latter is what we will take a closer look at.
In the first place, some Protestants’ tell us that the object of faith and science are different and extraneous to each other. “Faith” concerns itself solely with something that science declares to be “unknowable” for the purposes of Science.
So it is argued there can never be any disagreement between faith and science because each keeps its own ground, each has a separate field assigned to it. Science, therefore, is entirely concerned with the reality of phenomena in the visible world in which faith can have no part.
These Protestants’ will tell us this means there can be nothing in the visible world which can belong to the realm of faith. Therefore, according to their standard, the life of Christ can be seen only in terms of what is human. There can be nothing of the divine in His life that is accessible by faith.
They will argue that what we know of Christ falls within the category of “phenomena”, but any kind of faith put in Christ would be rooted in fabrications about His life and His person which came about from historical accounts that “transfigured” and “disfigured” what we know of Him. Therefore, these Protestants’ will use “science” to remove anything that would speak of Christ as being divine in His person so that “Religious Feelings” are not connected to any belief in Christ as divine.
This results in people questioning whether or not Christ actually performed miracles, or that He made real prophecies, or whether He truly rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven. And it is because Protestants’ have split science and faith in such a manner, using this method of Protestant, the agnostic scientist will then say, “No. There were no miracles and prophecies about Christ, they are all myths.” In this way the atheist and the Protestant unite.
Now, among themselves, Protestants’ may deny that the historical Jesus ever performed any miracles, but if they are believers that he did in any manner, they will confirm each other in whatever way they understand living a life of faith in Christ means to them as individuals.
This means they split Jesus Christ in two: they produce a Christ that is not divine and a Christ that is Divine, Jesus the human person and Jesus the Divine Person.
Jesus is not two persons! In fact, He is not a human person at all. He is a Divine Person only that assumed a fully human nature, but He is not a human person. And we see the results of Protestantism when they attack Catholic Doctrine in such things as the Virginity of Mary and the Immaculate Conception. They argue that Mary gave birth only to the “human person Jesus”, and they end up espousing a heresy about the very nature and person of Jesus Christ.
2nd JOHN
Problem # 70 for Sola Scriptura –
The Protestant needs to attack the nature of the Church to make Sola Scriptura appear credible. We need to consider some of their tactics to make the Church bend to their demands.
They begin by saying that the Church came into being as a result of two needs.
The first need - is the individual believers’ need to communicate his faith with others, especially if he believes he has had some kind of “original” or “special” experience, or some insight into Scripture.
And secondly - when it is accepted that each person is free to define their faith, they discover a need to come together collectively to form a sort of society, which is their understanding of the nature of the Church. And they believe this “society” comes together to guard, promote, propagate, and protect the “collective consensus.”
If we ask the Protestant: “What is the nature of the Church?” they will tell us the nature of the Church is merely the “collective conscience of individuals” which is founded upon the principle of “vital permanence”. The Church becomes the collective body of people who build on the idea of someone who came before them making it a permanent feature of History. In reality, the Protestant is busy doing a rewrite of history.
The Protestant will then say the character of the “collective conscience” and “vital permanence” (staying power) will depend on the “first believer”, which according to Protestant is Christ who believed in His own “Religious Experience” within himself just the same as any other man does. It is impossible for a Protestant to deny they believe this is a possibility for their understanding of Christ because objectivity about is impossible to determine according to the Principle of Sola Scriptura.
But Protestants’ will acknowledge that every society needs a directing authority to guide its members towards the “common end” so it may conserve, with prudence, the elements that unite a religious society which are “doctrine and worship”. And prudence, in the mind of the Protestant, is simply another way of saying they don’t want the Church to reprimand them for their ideas.
The goal of the Protestant is to strip the Church of authority in three areas so they may give that authority to themselves.
The three areas are:
- Disciplinary authority
- Dogmatic authority
- Liturgical authority
They will begin by arguing that the “nature of authority” in the Church must rest in its origin, namely, human nature, and therefore, the rights and duties of the Church rest in human nature as well. They will tell us that in times past it was an error to think that authority came from “without”, meaning directly from God. And they will tell us that authority modeled on God in the hands of men in the Church becomes tyrannical and abusive in the human experience.
And from this conclusion they will tell us this “old form of authority” has now grown old and obsolete. They will then argue that authority in the church proceeds not from the Magisterium of the Holy Catholic Church, but rather, true and living authority emanates from the “collective conscience of the members of its society.” In other words, they want the Magisterium to bend to the will of popular opinion even within the Catholic Church. Their view of authority emanates from the Church without a Magisterium unless the Magisterium is defined as the “collective conscience.”
So they conclude that true authority in the Church has its origins in the “Religious Conscience” of the people. And that being the case, every member in the Church, every Christian including the Pope must bend to the will of the people.
And the Protestant will also demand the Magisterium drop its authority, otherwise they will indeed carry out their conclusion and label the Church as tyrannical. They have pushed society to the edge where liberty has become license to do evil, and once the voice of the “public conscience” demands the right to govern civil order in a “religious society” we have arrived at a new low.
At this point, the Protestant will tell us they are bound in conscience not to God or the Church, but to what their own conscience tells them. And that it now behooves, rather, demands the ecclesiastical authority in the Church to conform itself to the democratic process, and if it does not, it can get itself ready for war. In their mind the Church must bend and recognize the “will of the people” in Christianity in the aggregate as the governing body unless it wishes to provoke and foment indigestion and conflict in the consciences of mankind. This is how vile they regard the authority of the Church to be.
The Protestant will then make the observation that there are not “two consciences” in man any more than there are “two lives”. There is nothing new in that. But, the Protestant wishes to say there is only “one man, each with his own conscience” in the “collective Church”. But the “one man” must not represent the “one collective conscience”, or the “one collective authority” unless the “collective conscience” is viewed as a new form of ecclesiastical authority that is independent of the “one Pope, one man” with a Magisterium of Bishops in union with him. It must be a new form of authority that has fashioned the Church after the manner of a “democratic society.”
And Protestants’ threaten the Church with the warning that the penalty for refusing to give in to the Protestant view of the Church will be disastrous. They threaten the Church while saying they have tasted the liberty of freedom apart from the Magisterium, and it tastes good to the rebellious. They tell us this new understanding of liberty is now spread so far and wide in Christianity, the Catholic Church, and society, that it is madness for the Church to think the knees of the people will bend once again to the Magisterium of the Church. And they threaten the Church even more. They tell us if they are forcibly confined and held in bonds by the doctrines and Dogmas as understood by the Catholic Church once again, terrible outburst would occur, sweeping away not only the Church but all of religion.
Their one anxiety, their one demand, is to find a way to reconcile authority of the Church with the “liberty” of the believers. And the only acceptable solution for them is for authority to be taken away from the Magisterium and given to the people where “democracy” is the authority. And the reason they want to do this is so they can mandate the evolution of Dogma and Doctrine.
3rd JOHN
Problem # 71 for Sola Scriptura –
Protestants’ must attack the nature of the Church and the Nature of the Sacraments.
They tell us that the Church and the Sacraments are not to be regarded as being instituted by Christ Himself. Because Protestants’ are cut off from any objective knowledge concerning the divinity of Christ being bound by Sola Scriptura, in reality, Protestants’ see Christ as nothing more than a man whose “religious consciousness” was, like all other men, formed by degrees. And they are forced to deny the fact that Christ’s human intellect was infused by knowledge from His own divine person because this would mean that He is God in time, and external to time, and all that He created. Therefore, since Protestants’ adhere to a view of “Immanence” which does not allow for the existence of a creator who is known by an authority external to the Bible, and therefore “external to their system”, they are forced to relegate Jesus to the common lot of all men whether or not they wish to.
Protestant theologians also reject the fact the Christ instituted the Church and the Sacraments because they embrace the “law of evolution” which requires the “growth of the seed” which takes place over time being exposed to various circumstances and conditions.
They tell us the truths of Christianity cannot exist without followers who added to what Christ taught, and this formed an “evolution of Christianity” each time something was added.
And lastly, the Protestant theologian tells us that history itself forbids us to acknowledge that Christ instituted the Church and the Sacraments. They will admit that Christ founded the Church and the Sacraments in a “certain manner by way of mediation.” What does the Protestant mean by this? He asserts that all “Christian consciences” are rooted in the same manner that Christ was rooted in His own conscience. They regard the “conscience of Christ” to be the “seed of a plant that grew into Christianity”. Christ is the seed and the tree would be His followers. And they tell us in the same way the branches share in the life of the seed, so do Christians share in the life of Christ. They reduce omniscience to the “conscience of Christ.”
They also assert that just as Christ lived His own life “according to faith”, in like manner all Christians do the same. And they make the claim it was the collective body of Christians who expanded Christ’s original human thoughts, and they allege this is where the Church and the Sacraments came from. And from this, the Protestant will tell us Christ was divine only in a pantheistic sense, therefore all men are just as divine as Christ in the same sense. And from this, they will tell us the “thoughts of Christ” are divine because he is “part of the universe,” and they became “permanent” because His original thoughts survived the ages and flourished which resulted in “divine permanence”. And they will conclude that “divine permanence” can be used in the same way to account for the nature of the Church and the Sacraments in that they regard them to be built on Christ and expanded upon by the Church. And Protestants’ make the same claims about Scripture and Dogma, and from this they conclude that Dogma and Scripture are ever evolving.
When you combine all of these Protestant views you end up with a complete system of theology which is corrupted and errant. And as such, it is more than enough for the Protestant theologian to corrupt the minds of others because, in the end, he professes all conclusions in theology are subject to the conclusions of science which must be accepted and respected.
No one will find it difficult to understand that Protestant theologians try to apply their mistaken theories wherever they can and in whatever way they can, which needs to be looked at.
So far we have touched upon the way Protestants’ understand the origin and nature of faith. But faith has many branches, and chief among them is the Church, dogma, worship, devotions, and the Canon of Scripture. It is necessary to look further at Dogma and the Sacraments.
We’ve already seen what Protestants’ believe concerning the origin and nature of Dogma.
They believe dogma comes from an “impulse” which the believer must clarify first for himself and then elaborate upon with his thoughts out of a necessity for both himself and others. He does this to render his understanding of dogma clear to his own conscience, and then to the conscience of others for them to understand. The result is this. Rather than dogma proceeding from on high by Christ through His Church, the Protestant will argue that dogma develops internally in the believer through the process of investigating, and refining his “primitive mental formula”. He will exempt himself from being required to explain his “formula” saying there is no “logical need” to do so. He will say he can only express his “conclusion” but the root of his “formula” lays hidden in his “subconscious”, so that he can exempt himself from the obligation of providing an “observable” formula. Nevertheless, in his boldness, forcing his view upon others, he will go on to explain how he used “his formula” to interpret his “impulse” of “Religious Feeling”. And he sinks further and further into himself as he interprets his “impulse” according to circumstances which he regards as “Vital to Himself”. This results in a relativistic approach to Dogma.
From his “primitive formula” the Protestant will build “secondary” formulas like different levels of a building that rest on the foundation. And they keep adding level upon level until they form a building, any building, any view of faith, any view of religion whatsoever. Their construction of doctrine is applauded in the arena of public opinion as though the public has been endowed with the capacity to approve the “construction” as a type of “public magisterium”. And they regard the public “common consensus” to be an affirmation of “common consciousness”, which they regard to be the authority that declares and defines Dogma.
Their understanding of Dogma is not alive. It is cut off from God and from the Church. But even though it is dead, it has the appearance of Dogma.
First of all, Dogma does not spring from the speculation of theologians. Theologians’ assist the Church in explaining Dogma, but they are not a parallel Magisterium. But, Protestant theologians will use their corrupted understanding of where Dogma comes from like a utility which serves to keep order and harmonize religion with subjectivism. Their false understanding of Dogma claims the capacity to remove opposition between different interpretations of Scripture but reality bears this out as a false claim. They claim to have the ability to illumine Dogma and defend religion on the outside while they set the course of the Church for destruction from within.
Concerning worship, there is not much to say that has not already been said about their perfidious approach to Dogma. That being said, we must still expose how they have attacked and the Sacraments and have built a false understanding of them for the sake of the Church.
Among the errors found in Protestant Theologians, their attack on the Sacraments is of the most serious nature. Everything in their system is explained by “inner impulses” or “necessities”. In the mind of the Protestant, the Sacraments are the result of a “double impulse” or “two needs.”
The first “need” the Protestant has is to provide some kind of visible, sensible manifestation of religion. And the second need is a way of expressing religion, but this would be impossible if there is not some visible form of religion, hence the need for the “first need”. The combination of these “two needs” is how the Protestant understands the “consecrating acts” which are called Sacraments. The Sacraments must have some visible form, or manifestation, that allows him to express his view of religion.
But keep in mind, for the Protestant, the Sacraments are merely “symbols or signs,” void of efficacy, namely “grace”, but nevertheless the Protestant sees the Sacraments as something he can use in his attacks, like a utility, which he will use, if he can, to disfigure the structure of the Church. As pointed out, the Protestant rejects the reality of grace in the Sacraments as understood by the Catholic Church, but they will allow the efficacy to be redefined as mere “phrases” used in the Sacraments that have been accepted among the populace, phrases that appeal to itching ears. And for the Protestant, using the Sacraments like a utility, he inserts his ideas into the phrases which propagate the ideas of the Protestant into the population at large, but always void of grace in the Sacrament itself as taught by the Church.
They deceive people and tell them that the phrases used in the Sacraments are to impress the populace by creating “Religious Feelings”, but nothing more. They tell us the sacraments have been instituted for the sole purpose of fostering faith according to “religious feelings” rather than to receive grace “by the action of God”. This view is held by Protestant and it has been condemned by the Council of Trent which says:
“If anyone says that these sacraments are instituted solely to foster the faith, let him be anathema.”
JUDE
Problem # 72 for Sola Scriptura –
Sola Scriptura, by its nature reduces Scripture to nothing more than a summary of “experiences”. But, they are not the kind of experiences that just come and go for just anyone. Protestants’ will even tell us that what is found in Scripture are the kind of experiences that are extraordinary and striking in their nature. But, they will then tell us these “experiences” are not to be found “only in the Catholic Church”. They can be found in any religion, and they assess these “experiences” in other religions indifferent to whether or not grace is to be found in these “experiences”. This puts “any experience” in “any religion” on par with revelation given by Jesus Christ which comes to us through the Church He founded. And this is precisely what Protestants’ teach about the Catholic Books of both the Old and New Testaments and how we are to understand them.
But to suit their own theories they try to be clever by saying:
“Although experience is something that belongs to the present, experience may draw from experiences of the past and the future inasmuch as any believer may live the past through memory, and in the same manner those in the present moment are willing to live out in the future.”
Confined by their model of theology, they look at the historical and eschatological nature of Sacred Scripture and Apocalyptic Books. God does indeed speak through the Sacred Scripture, but the Protestant Theologian would reduce the voice of God to “Immanence” and “Vital Permanence.” This is the same as saying:
“Man is God finding God in Himself, and speaking within Himself gives rise to his expression to others who in turn build upon his expression.”
The Protestant will then tell us that “inspiration” is distinguished from the “impulse” by the “need” to express himself in words, or writing, as a result of the “impulse” or “religious feeling” he “experiences”. This is an understanding of inspiration found in the Protestant who embraced the concept of “Immanence”. Consider what kind of an attack this is against the very nature of Inspiration from the Holy Spirit.
The Protestant cuts the Holy Spirit out of the picture and reduces inspiration to that which comes from the “first impulse or desire” within a man. It reduces inspiration to a “religious need” within the believer regardless of what it is that stimulates him to speak or to reveal his expression of faith. He feels inspired to write about what moves him inside, much like a poet. So the impulse that moves the poet is like the “Impulse of Religious Feeling” that moves him to express how he feels as “man who is God, as God in man”. Just as the poet is “set on fire”, “God in Man” sets man on fire because “Man is God.” This is to make man the Holy Spirit. But the “God within the Protestant” is cut off from the true God because we are not God.
We have seen how Protestants’ attacks Divine Inspiration from the Holy Spirit. And they go so far as to say there is nothing in Sacred Scripture that does not come from a Protestant understanding of inspiration. But inspired by whom? God or man! In this respect “some Protestants’” might be more disposed to consider Scripture in a more orthodox manner than certain other Protestants who tend to restrict inspiration even on Protestant terms that deal with the material they are examining. And they do this to see if it was inspired according to their subjective understanding of inspiration.
But, in the end, it is all a mere juggling of words. For if we take the Bible, according to the tenets of Sola Scriptura, the Bible itself is nothing more than a human work made by men for men. And the Protestant becomes free to proclaim that it is divine by “immanence”, and this means there is no room left in it for authentic inspiration from the Holy Spirit. General inspiration in the Protestant understanding of inspiration is easy to find, but inspiration in the Catholic sense, there is not a trace of it to be found in anything they say or write.
APOCALYPSE
Problem # 73 for Sola Scriptura –
It’s appropriate to close noting that the Protestants accept a Canon of Scripture that contains only 66 books, rather than the 73 in the Catholic Canon of Scripture.
First, it is a fantasy to think the Protestant Canon of Scripture would be 66 books had Pope Damasus not codified the Canon of the Old Testament for Christianity in the year 382.
Quite aside of the fact that they tossed out 7 books, by rejecting the authority and infallible capacity of the Catholic Church when it Canonized the Old Testament, they Protestants’ would have no idea how many books they would regard to be Old Testament Scripture were it not for the decision of Pope Damasus. So, they have not avoided being in debt to the Church for the number of books they accept in either the Old or New Testament.
In the Apocalypse, Chapter 22:18-19 we read:
18: “For I testify to every one that hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If any man shall add to these things, God shall add unto him the plagues written in this book.”
19 “And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from these things that are written in this book.”
It is important to make clear the distinction between Scripture and Tradition regarding these verses. When we read nothing is to be added to or taken from the "words of the prophecy of this book," this verse is not referring to “Sacred Tradition” being "added" to the Sacred Scripture.
And it is clear from the context that the book being referred to is the Book of the Apocalypse itself, and not the whole Bible itself. This is certain because John specifically stated if anyone added or deleted from this book they would be cursed.
No one can read this verse and think the Bible had been compiled and the Canon of Scripture selected when John penned those words against added or removing from this book. That would not take place for nearly 300 years after John penned the Ap0calypse.
If Protestants’ want to regard Sacred Tradition as adding to Scripture they must conclude that a Canon of Scripture would be a violation according to what John said about adding or removing simply because Scripture had not yet been compiled.
Protestants’ cannot argue that God knew in advance what books would eventually be included in the Canon of Scripture and then had John talk about not adding or removing from the Bible. There is nothing in Scripture to support such a view, and to the contrary, it rejects such a view.
Protestants’ cannot make this assertion without depending on an infallible authority outside of the Bible to confirm their assertion which would then render Sola Scriptura invalid because in principle, Sola Scriptura rejects any authority outside of the Bible.
Furthermore, in Deuteronomy 4:2 we read:
"You shall not add to the word that I speak to you, neither shall you take away from it: keep the commandment of the Lord your God which I command you."
It is the same admonition that John used regarding the book of the Apocalypse. According to Deuteronomy, if we apply the Protestant assertion to Scripture, anything beyond the decrees of Old Testament Law must be rejected as non-canonical and therefore not authentic Scripture. This would mean we have to reject the New Testament in its entirety which is absurd.
This means that Protestants cannot tell Catholics Sacred Tradition and the Teaching authority are a violation of the Book of the Apocalypse.
We fall back to 1st Timothy 3:15 which states unequivocally:
15: “… the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.”
If the very Church that Christ established does not have the infallible authority to serve as the “pillar and ground of truth,” if it has no real authority, then Scripture cannot be trusted for anything.one of this is to say those who embrace Sola Scriptura are satanic, but, in the end, we are forced to conclude the Principle of Sola Scriptura itself is 100% percent satanically inspired.
Roger L.
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