Perhaps I wasn't clear. The Bible is considered “God breathed”, divinely inspired created by the Holy Spirit through the men of God who lived the moment. It is from the Bible, and the Bible only, we derived our doctrines and theologies. No extra writings are used. Consequently, we do not create or base doctrine or theology on any part of the early church fathers’ writings. These writings, like other non-church sources of the time, are viewed for historical purposes only.
The church fathers had their share of disagreements (the Septuagint is just one) and issues of their own. But what these writings contain is information on the thoughts, life, and doctrine of the early church and serves as a guide or commentary in understanding the scriptures. They were not perfect men and they differed in interpretations on some issues. But they were solidly united in the core beliefs from which many of the creed came about.
As far as whether it was "scriptural” to “close the books” I’m not sure. However, given there was much heretical writings flooding the market (and since I might add) the church fathers were united in this to preserve the purity of the original text.
Did they make the right decision in closing the book? Given these were the church leaders who sacrifice all that they had and, in some cases, gave up their lives for the gospel and our Lord Jesus, I’d say that qualifies for a BIG Holy Spirit inspired effort.
Translation: "We read the Bible, and then we derive doctrines from our opinions and interpretations of what we read."
What is the biblical foundation for considering the Bible is anything of the sort? There is nothing in the scripture contained within the Bible as we have it today that talks about the Bible. Yes, there are references about scripture in general. You seem to be referencing 2 Timothy 3:16. This particular verse does indeed seem to be explaining something about scripture in general, but it certainly isn't identifying the Bible as a volume of scripture, let alone that the Bible the end all of scripture. Again, you are simply making my earlier point about how, for some reason, many believers automatically seem to assume that scripture and Bible are interchangeable terms. If we buy into the assumption that scripture equals Bible and that Bible equals scripture, then yes, we will start to build on that assumption to interpret things much differently than had we not accepted that premise to begin with. My point is that the premise that scripture equals Bible and that Bible equals scripture is not found anywhere in the Bible as we have it today. So, in order to subscribe to such a premise, you have to go outside the Bible.
It is from the Bible, and the Bible only, we derived our doctrines and theologies. No extra writings are used.
If this is how your personal belief paradigm functions, fine. I am merely pointing out that you are presuming things about the scripture contained within the Bible as we have it today that simply can't be found within the scripture contained within the Bible as we have it today.
As far as whether it was "scriptural" to "close the books" I'm not sure. However, given there was much heretical writings flooding the market (and since I might add) the church fathers were united in this to preserve the purity of the original text. Did they make the right decision in closing the book? Given these were the church leaders who sacrifice all that they had and, in some cases, gave up their lives for the gospel and our Lord Jesus, I'd say that qualifies for a BIG Holy Spirit inspired effort.
Again, if this is how your personal belief paradigm functions, fine. However, it isn't supported by anything in the scripture contained within the Bible as we have it today. You may want to ask yourself why you feel the need to make conclusions about such and such when the Bible itself has made no attempt to do so. There are a lot of open ended issues if we view just the scripture contained within the Bible as we have it today. As such, we certainly don't need to rush to conclusions. The serious disciple, in my opinion, is more than willing to await further light and knowledge rather than rush to conclusions that certainly don't need rushing to in order to continue in one's discipleship to deny oneself, take up one's cross and follow Christ.
That is completely inaccurate. Look up when the Bible was canonized and what major revisions and changes it underwent before it took the form you know of.
More importantly, the core Christian theology and doctrines (Trinity, Dual Nature of Christ, etc.) were derived on Sacred Tradition before the Bible existed. The Apostles taught based on Sacred Tradition.
Sola scriptura was not in God's plan for a simple reason that the printing presses did not exist until the 15th century (duh!), that not every Christian can read, that not every Christian can understand, that not every Christian has full resources of scriptural knowledge available.
Protestant sola scriptura holds that no one can tell me or you what the Bible says -- but try interpreting things in a way contrary to the already established human traditions in Protestant denominations (i.e. on issues such as to baptize or not, to immerse or not, is baptism salvation or not, is confession public or private, etc.), just try and see where it leads. Most probably out of the congregation! It leads to breaking up! The Protestants have done a great job atomizing Christianity into some 20,000 odd sects and "churches."
If sola sciptura were the sole path to the Truth, the One, the Only, then one could expect the Protestants to be the most catholic of all Christians -- because they would all agree on everything, for there are no 20,000 "truths" about God, but one.
In short, sola scriptura gets an F grade in my book.