Sola Scriptura

Sola Scriptura, or the Bible alone, is a Protestant doctrine that says that Scripture is the only valid source for Christian teaching about faith and morality. Catholics reject this belief as it is not biblical, not historical, and not logical.

Sola Scriptura first appeared during the Protestant Reformation and was not taught for the first 15 centuries of Christianity. It can not be found in the Bible or any writings of the early Church.

The truth is that Jesus established the Catholic Church and He gave it authority to hand down the good news of salvation along with his teaching.

The Church used this authority to share the Sacred Word of God through both written Scripture and oral Tradition. It established the Canon of Sacred Scripture, the authoritative books that should be included in the Bible.

To maintain unity, the Magisterium of the Catholic Church continues to interpret Sacred Scripture under the infallible guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Conversely, Sola Scriptura has led to division among the Protestant Churches with thousands of different denominations interpreting Sacred Scripture differently.

Scripture cannot be the sole source of truth:

A living voice is necessary:

To this end He has [also] called you through our Gospel to possess the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brothers, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught, either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours.
2 Thesalonians 2: 15

The Word of God is more than the Bible:

Both oral and written:

In keeping with the Lord’s command, the Gospel was handed on in two ways: – Orally “by the Apostles who handed on, by the spoken word of their preaching, by the example they gave, by the institutions they established, what they themselves had received – whether from the lips of Christ, from his way of life and his works, or whether they had learned it at the prompting of the Holy Spirit”; – In writing “by those Apostles and other men associated with the Apostles who, under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit, committed the message of salvation to writing”.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 76

Christ is the norm that sets all norms:

Jesus founded one Church:

Hence there exists a close connection and communication between Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. For Sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, while Sacred Tradition takes the word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, and hands it on to their successors in its full purity, so that led by the light of the Spirit of truth, they may in proclaiming it preserve this word of God faithfully, explain it, and make it more widely known. Consequently it is not from Sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence.
Pope Paul Vi, Dei Verbum, 18 November 1965

Logical problems of the Scripture alone:

Sola Scriptura is unreasonable:

Catholics reject the Bible alone: