“If you concede that some men may be holier than others, wiser than others, or have assistance from the Holy Spirit not enjoyed by each individual, or if you concede that generations of men laboring down the centuries may add to and refine our understanding of the Scriptures in a way no single lifetime would allow...Well, then, it becomes impossible to claim that one’s own understanding is as good as anyone else’s,...”
You response misconstrues my objection to your exaltation of Rome, and denigration of Protestants, and your present implied accusation is well applied to the former.
My objection was not to the need for teachers, and the validity of acquired wisdom, and the degree to which men in Rome have evidenced that, and i affirmed the teaching office of the church, and stated quite the opposite than the ones man’s interpretation was a valid than another’s. Rather, my objection was to the presumption to supremacy over both the Scriptures and those without Rome, and the basis for ecclesiastical authenticity.
In reality, it is not those who who hold to the supremacy of Scripture that, even in our present declension (which a problem in Catholicism as well) are evidencing that they see little need for instruction by those more learned than they, as it is evangelicals have produced the most beloved extensive commentaries on Scripture in their time, and far far more go to Sunday school (as well as church*) and manifest a far greater far desire for Bible exposition than Catholics.
In addition, many evangelicals are readers of the early church leaders. In fact, to hold to the supremacy of Scripture does not require dismissing such, but it does require testing it by the only objective authority which is affirmed to be 100% infallible. However, this is a one way street, as Catholics (as noted) are discouraged from reading the like, and few even know of Matthew Henry, Albert Barnes’ Adam Clarke, John Gill, Keil & Delitzsch, Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, etc.
Thus your objection cannot be that we disallow that others, past or present, may be holier, wiser, or have more assistance from the Holy Spirit, but that their authority does not rest upon them saying so, such as when fulling a certain declarative formula which they declare renders their teaching infallible. And that instead, such authority requires demonstrable conformity with that which has been established to be Scripture, along with the manner of attestation given to its truth.
*http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/RevealingStatistics.html#Sec4
ST. VINCENT OF LERINS [ A. D. 434 ]
With great zeal and closest attention, therefore, I frequently inquired of many men, eminent for their holiness and doctrine, how I might, in a concise and, so to speak, general and ordinary way, distinguish the truth of the Catholic faith from the falsehood of heretical depravity. I received almost always the same answer from all of them, that if I or anyone else wanted to expose the frauds and escape the snares of the heretics who rise up, and to remain intact and sound in a sound faith, it would be necessary, with the help of the Lord, to fortify that faith in a twofold manner: first, of course, by the authority of the divine law; and then, by the Tradition of the Catholic Church.
[Here, perhaps, someone may ask: “If the canon of the Scriptures be perfect, and in itself more than suffices for everything, why is it necessary that the authority of ecclesiastical interpretation be joined to it?” Because, quite plainly, Sacred Scripture, by reason of its own depth, is not accepted by everyone as having one and the same meaning. The same passage is interpreted in one way by some, in another by others, so that it can almost appear as if there are as many opinions as there are men. Novatian explains a passage in one way, Sabellius in another, Donatus in another; Anus, Eunomius, Macedonius in another; Photinus, Apollinaris, Priscillian in another; Jovinian, Pelagius, Caelestius in another; and afterwards in still another, Nestorius. And thus, because of so many distortions of such various errors, it is highly necessary that the line of prophetic and apostolic interpretation be directed in accord with the norm of the ecclesiastical and Catholic meaning.
In the Catholic Church herself every care must be taken that we may hold fast to that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all. For this is then truly and properly Catholic. That is what the force and meaning of the name itself declares, a name that embraces all almost universally. This general rule will be correctly applied if we pursue universality, antiquity, and agreement. And we follow universality in this way, if we confess this one faith to be true, which is confessed by the whole Church throughout the whole world; antiquity, however, if we in no way depart from those interpretations which, it is clear our holy predecessors and fathers solemnized; and likewise agreement, if, in this very antiquity, we adopt the definitions and theses of all or certainly of almost all priests and teachers.
To announce, therefore, to Catholic Christians something other than that which they have received has never been permitted, is nowhere permitted, and never will be permitted. And to anathematize those who announce anything other than that which has been received once and for all has never been unnecessary, is nowhere unnecessary and never will be unnecessary.
He is a true and genuine Catholic who loves the truth of God, the Church, and the Body of Christ; who puts nothing else before divine religion and the Catholic Faith, neither the authority nor the love nor the genius nor the eloquence nor the philosophy of any man whatsoever, but, despising all that and being fixed, stable, and persevering in his faith, is determined in himself to hold and believe that only which he knows the Catholic Church has held universally and from ancient times.
"Guard" he says, "what has been committed." What does it mean, "what has been committed”? It is what has been faithfully entrusted to you, not what has been discovered by you; what you have received, not what you have thought up; a matter not of ingenuity, but of doctrine; not of private acquisition, but of public Tradition; a matter brought to you, not put forth by you, in which you must be not the author but the guardian, not the founder but the sharer, not the leader, but the follower. "Guard," he says, "what has been committed."Keep the talent of the Catholic Faith inviolate and unimpaired. What has been faithfully entrusted, let it remain in your possession, let it be handed on by you. You have received gold, so give gold. For my part I do not want you to substitute one thing for mother; I do not want you impudently to put lead in place of gold, or, fraudulently brass. I do not want the appearance of gold, but the real thing. O Timothy, O priest. O interpreter, O teacher, if a divine gift has made you suitable in genius, in experience, in doctrine to be the Beseleel of the spiritual tabernacle, cut out the precious gems of divine dogma, shape them faithfully, ornament them wisely, add splendor, grace and beauty to them! By your expounding it, may that now be understood more clearly which formerly was believed even in its obscurity. May posterity, by means of you, rejoice in understanding what in times past was venerated without understanding, Nevertheless, teach the same that you have learned, so that if you say something anew, it is not something new that you say.
But perhaps someone is saying: "Will there, then, be no progress of religion in the Church of Christ?" Certainly there is, and the greatest. For who is there so envious toward men and so exceedingly hateful toward God, that he would try to prohibit progress? But it is truly progress and not a change of faith. What is meant by progress is that something is brought to an advancement within itself, by change, something is transformed from one thing into another. It is necessary, therefore, that understanding, knowledge, and wisdom grow and advance strongly and mightily as much in individuals as in the group, as much in one man as in the whole Church, and this gradually according to age and the times; and this must take place precisely within its own kind, that is, in the same teaching, in the same meaning, and in the same opinion. The progress of religion in souls is like the growth of bodies, which, in the course of years, evolve and develop, but still remain what they were. . . . For example: Our fathers of old sowed the seeds of the wheat of faith in this field which is the Church. Certainly it would be unjust and incongruous if we, their descendents, were to gather, instead of the genuine truth of wheat, the noxious error of weeds. On the contrary, it is right and logically proper that there be no discrepancy between what is first and what is last and that we reap, in the increment of wheat from the wheat of instruction, the fruit also of dogma. And thus, although in the course of time something evolved from those first seeds and has now expanded under careful cultivation, nothing of the characteristics of the seeds is changed. Granted that appearance, beauty, and distinction has been added, still, the same nature of each kind remains. May it never happen that the rose garden of the Catholic sense be turned into thistles and thorns. May it never happen, I say, that darnel and monk's hood suddenly spring up in the spiritual paradise of shoots of cinnamon and balsam.
We must most studiously investigate and follow this ancient agreement of the holy fathers, not in all the lesser questions of the divine Law, but certainly and especially in the rule of faith. . . . But only those opinions of the fathers are to he brought forward which were expressed by those who lived, taught, and persevered wisely and constantly in the holy Catholic faith and communion, and who merited either to die faithfully in Christ or to be killed gloriously for Christ. Those men, moreover, are to be believed, in accord with the rule that only that is to be held as undoubted, certain, and valid, which either all or most of them have confirmed by receiving, holding, and handing on in one and the same sense, manifestly, frequently, and persistently, as if by a council of teachers in mutual agreement. But whatever was thought outside of or even against the opinion of all, although it be by a holy and learned man, or although by a confessor and martyr, must be removed from the authority of the common and public and general opinion, as being among his personal and peculiar and private views. In this way we shall not, as is the sacrilegious custom of heretics and schismatics, reject the ancient truth of universal dogma, to pursue, with great danger to our eternal salvation, the novel error of one man.