The core topic is whether we are expected to understand Scripture or not, and how each of us is affected by the particular lens through which we view Scripture.
well bb, i would think that you should actually read the church fathers and note what they say about the teaching authority of the church, and its sole authority to interpret scripture, not just cherry pick a vague statement as if that was all that has been said. Thanks, I have. Here are a few:
Ambrose
"For how can we adopt those things which we do not find in the holy Scriptures?" - Ambrose (On the Duties of the Clergy, 1:23:102)
"The Arians, then, say that Christ is unlike the Father; we deny it. Nay, indeed, we shrink in dread from the word. Nevertheless I would not that your sacred Majesty should trust to argument and our disputation. Let us enquire of the Scriptures, of apostles, of prophets, of Christ. In a word, let us enquire of the Father...So, indeed, following the guidance of the Scriptures, our fathers [at the Council of Nicaea] declared, holding, moreover, that impious doctrines should be included in the record of their decrees, in order that the unbelief of Arius should discover itself, and not, as it were, mask itself with dye or face-paint." - Ambrose (Exposition of the Christian Faith, 1:6:43, 1:18:119)
Augustine
"In order to leave room for such profitable discussions of difficult questions, there is a distinct boundary line separating all productions subsequent to apostolic times from the authoritative canonical books of the Old and New Testaments. The authority of these books has come down to us from the apostles through the successions of bishops and the extension of the Church, and, from a position of lofty supremacy, claims the submission of every faithful and pious mind....In the innumerable books that have been written latterly we may sometimes find the same truth as in Scripture, but there is not the same authority. Scripture has a sacredness peculiar to itself." - Augustine (Reply to Faustus the Manichaean, 11:5)
"Every sickness of the soul hath in Scripture its proper remedy." - Augustine (Expositions on the Psalms, 37:2)
Clement of Alexandria
"But those who are ready to toil in the most excellent pursuits, will not desist from the search after truth, till they get the demonstration from the Scriptures themselves." - Clement of Alexandria (The Stromata, 7:16)
Cyprian
"Let nothing be innovated, says he, nothing maintained, except what has been handed down. Whence is that tradition? Whether does it descend from the authority of the Lord and of the Gospel, or does it come from the commands and the epistles of the apostles? For that those things which are written must be done, God witnesses and admonishes, saying to Joshua the son of Nun: 'The book of this law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate in it day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein.' Also the Lord, sending His apostles, commands that the nations should be baptized, and taught to observe all things which He commanded. If, therefore, it is either prescribed in the Gospel, or contained in the epistles or Acts of the Apostles, that those who come from any heresy should not be baptized, but only hands laid upon them to repentance, let this divine and holy tradition be observed." - Cyprian (Letter 73:2)
Cyril of Jerusalem
"For concerning the divine and holy mysteries of the Faith, not even a casual statement must be delivered without the Holy Scriptures; nor must we be drawn aside by mere plausibility and artifices of speech. Even to me, who tell thee these things, give not absolute credence, unless thou receive the proof of the things which I announce from the Divine Scriptures. For this salvation which we believe depends not on ingenious reasoning, but on demonstration of the Holy Scriptures." - Cyril of Jerusalem (Catechetical Lectures, 4:17)
Dionysius of Alexandria
"Nor did we evade objections, but we endeavored as far as possible to hold to and confirm the things which lay before us, and if the reason given satisfied us, we were not ashamed to change our opinions and agree with others; but on the contrary, conscientiously and sincerely, and with hearts laid open before God, we accepted whatever was established by the proofs and teachings of the Holy Scriptures." - Dionysius of Alexandria (cited in the church history of Eusebius, 7:24)
Gregory of Nyssa
"we make the Holy Scriptures the rule and the measure of every tenet; we necessarily fix our eyes upon that, and approve that alone which may be made to harmonize with the intention of those writings...And to those who are expert only in the technical methods of proof a mere demonstration suffices to convince; but as for ourselves, we were agreed that there is something more trustworthy than any of these artificial conclusions, namely, that which the teachings of Holy Scripture point to: and so I deem that it is necessary to inquire, in addition to what has been said, whether this inspired teaching harmonizes with it all. And who, she replied, could deny that truth is to be found only in that upon which the seal of Scriptural testimony is set?" - Macrina and Gregory of Nyssa (On the Soul and the Resurrection)
Hilary of Poitiers
"Their treason involves us in the difficult and dangerous position of having to make a definite pronouncement, beyond the statements of Scripture, upon this grave and abstruse matter....We must proclaim, exactly as we shall find them in the words of Scripture, the majesty and functions of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and so debar the heretics from robbing these Names of their connotation of Divine character, and compel them by means of these very Names to confine their use of terms to their proper meaning....I would not have you flatter the Son with praises of your own invention; it is well with you if you be satisfied with the written word." - Hilary of Poitiers (On the Trinity, 2:5, 3:23)
Hippolytus
Roman Catholics tell us that scripture is insufficient, and they often refer to scripture being unclear. We're often told that Trinitarian doctrine, for example, either is unbiblical or is unclear in scripture. But Hippolytus, a church father of the second and third centuries, who lived in Rome, disagreed. In the process of refuting anti-Trinitarian heresies, he advocated sola scriptura and explained that scripture itself (not scripture *and* an infallible interpreter) is sufficient to refute these heresies:
"Some others are secretly introducing another doctrine, who have become disciples of one Noetus, who was a native of Smyrna, and lived not very long ago. This person was greatly puffed up and inflated with pride, being inspired by the conceit of a strange spirit. He alleged that Christ was the Father Himself, and that the Father Himself was born, and suffered, and died....But the case stands not thus; for the Scriptures do not set forth the matter in this manner....the Scriptures themselves confute their senselessness, and attest the truth...The Scriptures speak what is right; but Noetus is of a different mind from them. Yet, though Noetus does not understand the truth, the Scriptures are not at once to be repudiated....The proper way, therefore, to deal with the question is first of all to refute the interpretation put upon these passages [of scripture] by these men, and then to explain their real meaning....For whenever they wish to attempt anything underhand, they mutilate the Scriptures. But let him quote the passage as a whole, and he will discover the reason kept in view in writing it....if they choose to maintain that their dogma is ratified by this passage [of scripture], as if He owned Himself to be the Father, let them know that it is decidedly against them, and that they are confuted by this very word....Many other passages [of scripture], or rather all of them, attest the truth. A man, therefore, even though he will it not, is compelled to acknowledge God the Father Almighty, and Christ Jesus the Son of God, who, being God, became man, to whom also the Father made all things subject, Himself excepted, and the Holy Spirit; and that these, therefore, are three. But if he desires to learn how it is shown still that there is one God, let him know that His power is one....What, then, will this Noetus, who knows nothing of the truth, dare to say to these things? And now, as Noetus has been confuted, let us turn to the exhibition of the truth itself, that we may establish the truth, against which all these mighty heresies have arisen without being able to state anything to the purpose. There is, brethren, one God, the knowledge of whom we gain from the Holy Scriptures, and from no other source. For just as a man, if he wishes to be skilled in the wisdom of this world, will find himself unable to get at it in any other way than by mastering the dogmas of philosophers, so all of us who wish to practise piety will be unable to learn its practice from any other quarter than the oracles of God. Whatever things, then, the Holy Scriptures declare, at these let us took; and whatsoever things they teach, these let us learn; and as the Father wills our belief to be, let us believe; and as He wills the Son to be glorified, let us glorify Him; and as He wills the Holy Spirit to be bestowed, let us receive Him. Not according to our own will, nor according to our own mind, nor yet as using violently those things which are given by God, but even as He has chosen to teach them by the Holy Scriptures, so let us discern them." (Against the Heresy of One Noetus, 1-4, 7-9)
Irenaeus
"They [heretics] gather their views from other sources than the Scriptures...We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith....It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and to demonstrate the succession of these men to our own times; those who neither taught nor knew of anything like what these heretics rave about. For if the apostles had known hidden mysteries, which they were in the habit of imparting to 'the perfect' apart and privily from the rest, they would have delivered them especially to those to whom they were also committing the Churches themselves. For they were desirous that these men should be very perfect and blameless in all things, whom also they were leaving behind as their successors, delivering up their own place of government to these men; which men, if they discharged their functions honestly, would be a great boon to the Church, but if they should fall away, the direst calamity....proofs of the things which are contained in the Scriptures cannot be shown except from the Scriptures themselves." - Irenaeus (Against Heresies, 1:8:1, 3:1:1, 3:3:1, 3:12:9)
Jerome
"When, then, anything in my little work seems to you harsh, have regard not to my words, but to the Scripture, whence they are taken." - Jerome (Letter 48:20)
"I beg of you, my dear brother, to live among these books [scripture], to meditate upon them, to know nothing else, to seek nothing else." - Jerome (Letter 53:10)
"When Paula comes to be a little older and to increase like her Spouse in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and man, let her go with her parents to the temple of her true Father but let her not come out of the temple with them. Let them seek her upon the world's highway amid the crowds and the throng of their kinsfolk, and let them find her nowhere but in the shrine of the scriptures" - Jerome (Letter 107:7)
Justin Martyr
"And now, if I say this to you, although I have repeated it many times, I know that it is not absurd so to do. For it is a ridiculous thing to see the sun, and the moon, and the other stars, continually keeping the same course, and bringing round the different seasons; and to see the computer who may be asked how many are twice two, because he has frequently said that they are four, not ceasing to say again that they are four; and equally so other things, which are confidently admitted, to be continually mentioned and admitted in like manner; yet that he who founds his discourse on the prophetic Scriptures should leave them and abstain from constantly referring to the same Scriptures, because it is thought he can bring forth something better than Scripture. The passage, then, by which I proved that God reveals that there are both angels and hosts in heaven is this: 'Praise the Lord from the heavens: praise Him in the highest. Praise Him, all His angels: praise Him, all His hosts.'" (Dialogue with Trypho, 85)
A common Catholic response to such patristic passages is to argue that the church father in question was only referring to the importance of scripture, not its sufficiency. In other words, though Justin Martyr is correct that there's nothing better than scripture, he isn't denying that there can be other sources of *equal* authority, such as the traditions of Roman Catholicism.
But Justin criticizes those who would "leave" scripture, who wouldn't "constantly" look to it in their arguments. If we can't leave scripture, and we're to look to it constantly, what is that if not sola scriptura?
Another common Catholic response to such patristic passages is to claim that the church father was advocating the material sufficiency of scripture, but not its formal sufficiency. In other words, all doctrines can be derived from scripture, but we need the infallible Roman Catholic hierarchy to guide us, to tell us what is to be derived from the scriptures. But Justin doesn't say that. He doesn't refer to scripture being sufficient if accompanied by the interpretations of the Roman Catholic magisterium. Rather, he refers to scripture itself being sufficient. Just after his comments on the sufficiency of scripture, Justin goes on to quote a passage from the Psalms as proof for one of his arguments. Instead of quoting the Roman Catholic magisterium's interpretation of the Psalm, Justin tells us that the Psalm itself is the proof.
It doesn't seem, then, that Justin had material sufficiency in view. It seems that he was referring to the formal sufficiency of scripture. Even if he had been referring to material sufficiency, the popularity of material sufficiency in some Roman Catholic circles is of recent origin, and some Catholics still reject the concept.
If scripture is as insufficient, as unclear as Roman Catholics claim it is, one wonders why there wasn't some infallible interpreter of scripture in the Old Testament era, one to which both Justin Martyr and Trypho could have appealed in their disputes over the Messianic prophecies. Justin Martyr shows no knowledge of such an Old Testament infallible interpreter, nor does he show any knowledge of such an institution in this New Testament era.
Theodoret
"I shall yield to scripture alone." - Theodoret (Dialogues, 1)
The above quotes and commentary from http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/Ancients_on_Scripture.html#2
