Often what is seen in addition to those who have never heard of sola fide meaning faith alone as being what precisely appropriates justification, but not a faith that will not effect the obedience of faith, is the idea that SS means other sources have no place in determining truth.
Sometimes this is due to the disparagement of so-called church "fathers" (which the apostles were) expressed by evangelicals in response to Catholic esteem of them "above that which is written" (1Cor. 4:6) and as being unduly being determinative of Truth, but this exclusion of all else is not historically case, and which would be a fringe position even now, but all such extraBiblical sources are subject to the assured Word of God, the supernaturally established Scriptures.
► From Alister McGrath's* The Genesis of Doctrine: A Study in the Foundation of Doctrinal Criticism:
Although it is often suggested that the reformers had no place for tradition in their theological deliberations, this judgment is clearly incorrect. While the notion of tradition as an extra-scriptural source of revelation is excluded, the classic concept of tradition as a particular way of reading and interpreting scripture is retained. Scripture, tradition and the kerygma are regarded as essentially coinherent, and as being transmitted, propagated and safeguarded by the community of faith. There is thus a strongly communal dimension to the magisterial reformers' understanding of the interpretation of scripture, which is to be interpreted and proclaimed within an ecclesiological matrix. It must be stressed that the suggestion that the Reformation represented the triumph of individualism and the total rejection of tradition is a deliberate fiction propagated by the image-makers of the Enlightenment. — James R. Payton, “Getting the Reformation Wrong: Correcting Some Misunderstandings”
*Irish theologian, pastor, intellectual historian and Christian apologist, currently Professor of Theology, Ministry, and Education at Kings College London
► THE SECOND HELVETIC CONFESSION - Page 2 (Heinrich Bullinger: Calvinist confession; adopted by the Reformed Church not only throughout Switzerland but in Scotland (1566), Hungary (1567), France (1571), Poland (1578), and next to the Heidelberg Catechism is the most generally recognized Confession of the Reformed Church.)
Interpretations of the Holy Fathers. Wherefore we do not despise the interpretations of the holy Greek and Latin fathers, nor reject their disputations and treatises concerning sacred matters as far as they agree with the Scriptures; but we modestly dissent from them when they are found to set down things differing from, or altogether contrary to, the Scriptures. Neither do we think that we do them any wrong in this matter; seeing that they all, with one consent, will not have their writings equated with the canonical Scriptures, but command us to prove how far they agree or disagree with them, and to accept what is in agreement and to reject what is in disagreement.
► From evangelical authorities Norman L. Geisler and Ralph E. MacKenzie:
By sola Scriptura Protestants mean that Scripture alone is the primary and absolute source for all doctrine and practice (faith and morals). Sola Scriptura implies several things.
First, the Bible is a direct revelation from God. As such, it has divine authority. For what the Bible says, God says.
Second, the Bible is [formally and materially] sufficient: it is all that is necessary for faith and practice. For Protestants the Bible alone means the Bible only is the final authority for our faith.
Third, the Scriptures not only have sufficiency but they also possess final authority. They are the final court of appeal on all doctrinal and moral matters. However good they may be in giving guidance, all the fathers, Popes, and Councils are fallible. Only the Bible is infallible.
Fourth, the Bible is perspicuous (clear). The perspicuity of Scripture does not mean that everything in the Bible is perfectly clear, but rather the essential teachings are. Popularly put, in the Bible the main things are the plain things, and the plain things are the main things. This does not mean — as Catholics often assume — that Protestants obtain no help from the fathers and early Councils. Indeed, Protestants accept the great theological and Christological pronouncements of the first four ecumenical Councils. What is more, most Protestants have high regard for the teachings of the early fathers, though obviously they do not believe they are infallible. So this is not to say there is no usefulness to Christian tradition, but only that it is of secondary importance.
Fifth, Scripture interprets Scripture. This is known as the analogy of faith principle. When we have difficulty in understanding an unclear text of Scripture, we turn to other biblical texts. For the Bible is the best interpreter of the Bible. In the Scriptures, clear texts should be used to interpret the unclear ones. — http://www.equip.org/PDF/DC170-3.pdf
Of course, Scripture only mean what Rome says it is and means, and likewise she judges the CFs more than she is judged by them (Catholic Encyclopedia>“Tradition and Living Magisterium”) and thus in response to arguments from antiquity, is the oft-quoted classic response from Manning,
"It was the charge of the Reformers that the Catholic doctrines were not primitive, and their pretension was to revert to antiquity. But the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy. It is a treason because it rejects the Divine voice of the Church at this hour, and a heresy because it denies that voice to be Divine." (Most Rev. Dr. Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, Lord Archbishop of Westminster, "The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost: Or Reason and Revelation," (New York: J.P. Kenedy & Sons, originally written 1865, reprinted with no date), pp. 227-2280; www.archive.org/stream/a592004400mannuoft/a592004400mannuoft_djvu.txt)
Nice post.
That is circular reasoning and complete nonsense. As Churchill once begged; "Can a man stand in a bucket and lift himself up by the handle?"
Any Biblically based doctrine is only as good as the fidelity of its translation and, absent an infallible authority, that fidelity cannot be established without the input of those who possess knowledge of what legal scholars call "original intent". Ironically, that original intent is only found in the Traditions of the Church and in the Early Church Fathers, whom Protestantism discounts because of their Catholicity, which were the wellspring from which the Bible was produced.
Peace be with you.