Often, in a desperate attempt to support the doctrine of sola scriptura and/or their very low view of ecclesiology, some Protestant apologists will argue that all a Christian needs is the Holy Spirit, not an authoritative Church and/or additional Scripture such as those that Latter-day Saints accept (i.e., Book of Mormon; Doctrine and Covenants; Pearl of Great Price). Of course, this would mean that the Holy Spirit is schizophrenic, guiding Protestants who embrace sola scriptura to radically divergent views on central, not merely “minor” issues, such as baptismal regeneration which affects salvation itself(!)
John Whiteford, a former Protestant who is now Eastern Orthodox, wrote the following in response to some of the fallacious arguments forwarded by defenders of sola scriptura:
APPROACH #2: The Holy Spirit provides the correct understanding.
Presented with the numerous groups that arose under the banner of the Reformation that could not agree on the interpretation of Scriptures, Protestant scholars next proposed as a solution the assertion that the Holy Spirit would guide the pious Protestants to interpret the Scriptures rightly. But everyone who disagreed doctrinally could not possibly be guided by the same Spirit. The result was that each group tended to de-Christianize all those who differed from it.
If this approach were a valid one, we would be left with one group of Protestants which had rightly interpreted the Scriptures. But which one of the thousands of denominations could it be? The answer depends on which Protestant you are speaking to. One thing you can be sure of—those who use this argument invariably are convinced their group is it.
As denominations stacked upon denominations, it became a correspondingly greater stretch for any of them to say with a straight face that only they had it right. So it has become increasingly common to minimize the differences between denominations and simply conclude those differences do not much matter. “Perhaps each group has a piece of the Truth, but none of us has the whole Truth.”
APPROACH #3: Let the clear passages interpret the unclear
This must have seemed the perfect solution to the problem of how to interpret the Bible by itself—let the easily understood passages interpret those which are not clear. The logic of this approach is simple. Though one passage may state a truth obscurely, surely the same truth would be clearly stated elsewhere in Scripture. So simply use these clear passages as the key, and you will have unlocked the meaning of the obscure passage . . . As promising as this method seems, it soon proved an insufficient solution to the problem of Protestant chaos and division. The point at which this approach disintegrates is in determining which passages are clear and which are obscure.
Those Protestants who believe it is impossible for a Christian to lose his salvation see a number of passages which they maintain quite clearly teach their doctrine of eternal security. For example, “For the gifts and callings of God are without repentance” (Romans 11:29), and “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand” (John 10:27, 28).
But when such Protestants come across verses which seem to teach salvation can be lost, such as “The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression” (Ezekiel 33:12), and “He that endureth unto the end shall be saved” (Matthew 10:22; cf. 24:13; Revelation 2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12; cf. 21:7), they use their passages that are “clear” to explain away these passages that are “unclear.”
Arminians, who believe a man may lose salvation if he turns his back on god, find no obscurity in such warnings. On the contrary , to them they are quite clear! (John Whiteford, Sola Scriptura: An Orthodox Analysis of the Cornerstone of Reformation Theology [Ben Lomond, Calif.: Conciliar Press, 1996], 25-27)
Again, we see how false the doctrine of sola scriptura truly is and why it clearly falls under the anathema of Gal 1:6-9.
