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No, not a trick question but the question of authority is important. It seems to me that Protestants believe that each individual has the ability to make that judgment and along with that judgment the ability to authoritatively interpret scripture.

It seems to me that Protestants believe that each individual has the ability to make that judgment and along with that judgment the ability to authoritatively interpret scripture.

HMmmm...

I wonder why?

NIV 1 Corinthians 2:11-16
11. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
12. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.
13. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.
14. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
15. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment:
16. "For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.

NIV Romans 15:21
Rather, as it is written: "Those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand."

NIV 2 Corinthians 1:13-14
13. For we do not write you anything you cannot read or understand. And I hope that,
14. as you have understood us in part, you will come to understand fully that you can boast of us just as we will boast of you in the day of the Lord Jesus.

NIV Colossians 2:2-4
2. My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ,
3. in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
4. I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments.

NIV 2 Peter 3:15-16
15. Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him.
16. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.

NIV 1 John 5:20
We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true--even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

The thrust of these verses are that God's truths are WRITTEN DOWN and that believers can UNDERSTAND them.

Let me preface this by saying that I am not a theologian, nor a member of the clergy, so I'm just speaking as an individual Christian who is a Protestant.

There is a vast chasm between the Protestant belief in the "priesthood of the believer" (1 Peter 2:5), and the view that differs from Catholicism that the only mediator between God and man is Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 2: 5), and your gross mischaraterization that we each come up with our own personal 'truth.'

Each of us is personally accountable to God for our actions, and each of us has the responsibility to study the Scriptures prayerfully to try to understand it, but that is not the same thing as saying we come up with our own 'truth.'

There is only one Author of truth, and it is our obligation and opportunity to learn to know Him through study of His word.

And to understand that our finite minds cannot successfully accomplish the task, and that we will often get it wrong.