I would say the authority of the Holy Scripture comes from the very fact that they are "inspired" by God, wouldn't you? After all, that is what our early church fathers stated who made the distinction of inspired and uninspired writings. No other writings in church history is so distinguished. You may say that the Church is confirming the writings, but the fact is the early church father distinguish the writings as different-as inspired by God. Therefore they are different and carries the weight of the authority from God Himself.
The question I ask Catholics, and have yet to receive an answer, is how is any other Church writing on the same level as the Bible?
The question I ask Catholics, and have yet to receive an answer, is how is any other Church writing on the same level as the Bible?LOL, another funny guy. See Inspiration of the Bible
History alone allows us to establish the fact that Jews and Christians have always believed in the inspiration of the Bible. But what is this belief worth? Proofs of the rational as well as of the dogmatic order unite in justifying it. Those who first recognized in the Bible a superhuman work had as foundation of their opinion the testimony of the Prophets, of Christ, and of the Apostles, whose Divine mission was sufficiently established by immediate experience or by history. To this purely rational argument can be added the authentic teaching of the Church. A Catholic may claim this additional certitude without falling into a vicious circle, because the infallibility of the Church in its teaching is proved independently of the inspiration of Scripture; the historical value, belonging to Scripture in common with every other authentic and truthful writing, is enough to prove this.If you actually had asked many of us, you would have been given the arguments in the linked article. Hopefully you take the time to read and understand them.
John Knox came along in the sixteenth century. If it hadn’t been for the Catholic Church, he wouldn’t have HAD a Bible. Nor would Martin Luther have had one earlier. It is the Catholic Church that goes back through history to the beginning. The Protestant Churches didn’t come along until 1500 years later.
Moreover, it was the Catholic Church that Christianized Europe and spread the Bible among all the peoples of Europe, beginning in Ireland after the fall of Rome, then to England, and then back to France and Germany in time to teach Charlemaigne and his warriors what Christian learning was.
If the early Church Fathers had buried their Bibles in the ground and the Church had disappeared around the time of Constantine, not to pop up again until the time of Martin Luther—where would it have come from? Who would have told them where to dig up their Bibles? And why would they have wanted to, anyway, if they were all pagans?
The early Reformers tended to argue that the Church had been completely corrupted and essentially disappeared from the earth for a thousand years. Then how did Martin Luther get his education? Who gave him his Bible? Who taught him Latin? Who told him which books were in the Bible?
In other words, Protestants may believe that their religion is better than Catholicism. And Catholics may believe the reverse. But without Catholicism, there could have been no Protestantism.
An interesting thought experiment, which these Protestant claims to exclusivity seem to me to raise.
Could God have taken a pagan Martin Luther, thrown him down from his horse, and inspired him with all the teachings of the Bible? Of course. With God, all things were possible. But I don’t notice Luther claiming that any such thing happened.