I'll let the Reverend defend his statement that scripture is a Christian invention. Assuming he's right, however, we can imagine the selection process outside of the context of the word "scripture", as making these selections is really the invention of the Jewish tradition. I'd like to see how the Reverend explains the difference between the Jewish method and the Christian method that results in "scripture" for Christians but not Jews.Physics Guy wrote:Exactly why any particular text might deserve that kind of extra respect, that's another question. I don't see how any book could deserve that kind of status just by default—though if you grow up with a Scripture, you probably do give it that status just by default.
His remark guided my mind to the idea of sola scriptura, however, which is more familiar to me.
I'll lay it out with maximum cynicism. As I understand it, the Catholic Church has three sources of truth; scripture, the Pope, and tradition. Sola scriptura is a grift. The idea is that we don't need the Church and its experts, we just need the pure word of God -- scripture. In principle, the reformation means every believer can sup from the word directly without priestly intervention. And now that there's a printing press, it's practical for believers to hold the word of God in their own hands and read it for themselves.The idea that something must be true, just because a particular book says it is, is bizarre to me. On the other hand it isn't just stupid to attribute authority to a source. Sometimes it's smart to decide that some particular person is worth trusting on some topic; even if you don't trust them enough to just believe them
It's as bad as a flat earth channel on YouTube. Pseudoscience gets some mileage out of Richard Feynman's remark that "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." It may be true that in principle I can conduct my own experiments in my garage or I can read the Bible for myself, but unlikely I'll produce much of anything original. Pseudoscientists are legendary for telling their audience to "think for themselves" because it makes them sound non-dogmatic and open to criticism unlike the "establishment", and who is less qualified to make determinations about fundamental physics than their audience? It's a good sales line to win converts.
And so I don't disagree with you that we can have authoritative books like the books of Moses and Paul's epistles. My point is there's no tractable message, especially for the lay person, and that is entirely at odds with the premise of the reformation. In reality, the reformation was a grift to get people to ditch one set of authorities for another set of authorities.