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Isn't the Bible Alone Enough?

The Short Answer

Catholics believe the Bible is the inspired word of God, without error in what it teaches for our salvation. What they deny is that the Bible was ever meant to stand alone. The Bible itself never teaches “Scripture alone”; it speaks of traditions handed on “by word of mouth or by letter” and calls the Church “the pillar and bulwark of the truth.” The early Christians read Scripture within the faith handed down in the Church. And history shows that Scripture without an authoritative interpreter does not produce one faith, but many.

Many Protestants see it differently. For them, sola scriptura means that Scripture is the only infallible rule of faith, against which every church teaching must be tested. That view comes from a real desire to keep God’s word above human ideas. Here is why Catholics believe God gave His word in a different way.

What the Church Does and Does Not Claim

The Church does not claim:

The Church does claim that “sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, committed to the Church,” and that the task of authentically interpreting that word “has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church” (Dei Verbum 10).

Why Catholics Believe It

1. The Bible never teaches “the Bible alone”

If Scripture alone were the rule of faith, we would expect Scripture to say so. It does not. Instead, St Paul tells the Thessalonians: “So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter” (2 Thessalonians 2:15). He praises the Corinthians because they “maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you” (1 Corinthians 11:2).

For Paul, the apostolic teaching came in two forms, spoken and written, and both were to be held fast.

2. The Bible points to the Church

St Paul calls “the church of the living God” — not the Bible — “the pillar and bulwark of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). Jesus told His followers to settle disputes by taking them to the Church (Matthew 18:17). And when the first great controversy arose, over whether Gentile converts must be circumcised, it was not settled by each believer reading the Scriptures for himself. The apostles and elders met in council in Jerusalem and issued a decision: “it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” (Acts 15:28).

3. The Bible itself says it needs interpreting

When Philip asked the Ethiopian official, “Do you understand what you are reading?”, he replied: “How can I, unless some one guides me?” (Acts 8:30–31). St Peter warned that in Paul’s letters “there are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction” (2 Peter 3:16).

Scripture is clear enough to lead sincere readers to Christ. But it does not interpret itself on every disputed question, and Scripture says so.

4. The Bible does not tell us which books are the Bible

No verse of Scripture lists the books of Scripture. The table of contents is not inspired text. Christians know which books belong in the New Testament because the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, recognised them over the first four centuries.

This is a real difficulty for sola scriptura. Anyone who trusts that the twenty-seven books of the New Testament are the right ones is already relying on the Church’s Tradition. St Augustine saw this clearly: “For my part, I should not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church” (Against the Epistle of Manichaeus Called Fundamental 5).

5. The early Christians read Scripture within Tradition

The early Fathers loved and quoted Scripture constantly. But when heretics appealed to Scripture, the Fathers answered by pointing to the faith handed down in the churches the apostles founded.

St Irenaeus (c. 180) asked: “For how should it be if the apostles themselves had not left us writings? Would it not be necessary, [in that case,] to follow the course of the tradition which they handed down to those to whom they did commit the Churches?” (Against Heresies III.4.1).

Tertullian (c. 200) went further. Arguing with heretics who used Scripture against the Church, he wrote: “Our appeal, therefore, must not be made to the Scriptures,” because “wherever it shall be manifest that the true Christian rule and faith shall be, there will likewise be the true Scriptures and expositions thereof, and all the Christian traditions” (The Prescription Against Heretics 19).

St Vincent of Lérins (c. 434) put the question directly. If the canon of Scripture is “complete, and sufficient of itself for everything,” why do we need the Church’s interpretation? Because, “owing to the depth of Holy Scripture, all do not accept it in one and the same sense, but one understands its words in one way, another in another,” so that it seems capable of “as many interpretations as there are interpreters.” The safeguard, he said, is to hold “that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all” (Commonitory 2.5–6).

Notice that Vincent does not deny that Scripture is complete. Catholics do not either. The issue is not whether Scripture is sufficient in content, but who can say with authority what it means.

6. What history shows

The Reformers expected that sincere believers, reading the Bible with the help of the Holy Spirit, would reach the same conclusions. That is not what happened.

In 1529, only twelve years after the Reformation began, Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli met at Marburg. Both held to Scripture alone. Both read the same words, “This is my body.” They could not agree on what those words meant, and they parted. Since then, Protestantism has divided into a great many separate churches, disagreeing on baptism, the Eucharist, church government, whether salvation can be lost, and much else. Each appeals to the Bible.

This does not show that Protestants are insincere; many are devout and admirable Christians. It shows that a text, however inspired, cannot settle disputes about its own meaning. Every legal system knows this: a constitution needs a court to interpret it. Catholics believe Christ provided for His Church in the same way, promising that the Spirit would guide the apostles “into all the truth” (John 16:13) and giving their successors authority to teach in His name.

Common Objections

”But 2 Timothy 3:16 says all Scripture is inspired and makes the man of God complete.”

St Paul writes: “All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16–17). Catholics believe every word of this.

But notice what the passage says and does not say. It says Scripture is inspired and profitable. It does not say Scripture alone is the rule of faith, or that nothing else is needed. In the verse before, Paul reminds Timothy that “from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings” (3:15): that is, the Old Testament, since much of the New was not yet written. If this passage taught Scripture alone, it would mean the Old Testament alone. And in the same letter Paul tells Timothy to hand on what he has heard from Paul in the presence of many witnesses to faithful men who will teach others (2 Timothy 2:2). Written and spoken teaching go together.

”Jesus condemned tradition: ‘You leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men.’”

He did (Mark 7:8). But He condemned human traditions that contradicted God’s commandment, like the custom that let people avoid supporting their parents (Mark 7:9–13). He did not condemn the apostolic Tradition, which St Paul commands Christians to hold fast (2 Thessalonians 2:15). The Church makes the same distinction: human customs can be changed or abandoned; the Tradition received from the apostles cannot.

”The Bereans tested Paul’s teaching against Scripture.”

The Bereans “received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11). This is good, and Catholics should do the same. But the Bereans were Jews examining the Old Testament to see whether Jesus was the promised Messiah. They were not practising sola scriptura; they were accepting new teaching from an apostle, with the help of the Scriptures they already had. Their example shows that Scripture and living apostolic teaching work together.

”The Holy Spirit guides every believer. I don’t need a Church to tell me what the Bible means.”

St John does write that his readers “have no need that any one should teach you” (1 John 2:27). Yet he writes this in a letter teaching them, and warning them against false teachers. The Spirit does guide every believer. But the Spirit does not contradict Himself, and sincere, Spirit-filled Christians reach contradictory conclusions about baptism, the Eucharist and salvation. If the Spirit’s guidance of individuals were enough to settle these questions, they would be settled. Catholics believe the Spirit also guides the Church as a whole, so that believers are not left to their own reading alone.

”Catholics disagree among themselves too.”

They do: about liturgy, about how to apply moral principles, about pastoral approach and emphasis. But Catholics have a way of settling disputed questions of doctrine, and the Church has used it from the Council of Jerusalem onwards. A Catholic who rejects a defined doctrine is departing from the Church’s teaching; he does not found a new and equally valid church. The difference is not that Catholics never disagree. It is that the Church has an authority that can say, “This is the faith.”

In Summary

The Bible is God’s word, and Catholics hold it in the highest honour. But the Bible never claims to stand alone. It points to the traditions of the apostles and to the Church as the pillar of truth; it admits that it can be twisted; and it does not tell us which books it contains. The early Christians read Scripture within the faith handed down in the Church. Scripture, Tradition and the Church’s teaching office, says the Council, “are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others” (Dei Verbum 10).

See also Is the Bible Reliable?, Why Do Catholics Have Seven More Books in the Bible? and Where Is the Papacy in the Bible?

This article follows the method St Robert Bellarmine used in his Controversies*: state the question fairly, clear away misunderstandings, make the case, then answer each objection. Bellarmine’s first Controversy,* De Verbo Dei (On the Word of God), devotes a whole book to the unwritten word of God, Tradition. See How We Answer Objections.

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