Today at work, a situation occurred that is a good example of why Sola Scriptura is problamatic as a doctrine. As a Catholic, I do not believe in the heresy of Sola Scriptura. Sola Scriptura, for those who don’t already know, means Bible Alone.
For the past several years my employer has been working on a new computer system that will replace an antiquated computer system that is several decades old. There are certain processes that are done on the new system that still need to be processed in a similar way as they were in the old. In the process of building the new system, “Use Cases” were created as guidelines for what the system should do and how it should do them. Together these “Use Cases” form a sort of “Bible” for developing the new computer system.
My employer hired a “vendor” to design and build the new system. The vendor’s employees are not necessarily familiar with what our agency does in our everyday business. They refer to the “Use Cases”, when it comes to functionality issues.
The problem with the ”Use Cases” alone is that they can be and are misinterpreted by the vendor. This problem led the vendor to make some changes that we did not want and did not ask for. Without the unwritten knowledge that was passed down from the beginning through our employees, the vendor was not able to correctly interpret the “Use Case” and did something in error. In this case they needed the “tradition” that has been passed down orally through the experience of my companies employees to interpret what the “Use Case” really was saying. Without this “oral tradition” the written word was misused and misunderstood. Now I do know that this is not a perfect analogy but it does make a lot of practical sense when it comes to understanding the Bible and Sacred Tradition.
God Bless
