When I was a Protestant, desperately trying to remain Protestant and resist the Catholic Church, I spent a lot of time trying to rationalize and defend Sola Scriptura. But there was one glaring problem I could never overcome. Nowhere does Scripture teach that Scripture alone is the Christian's only infallible rule of faith. I watched countless Protestants, myself included, constantly demand that Catholics prove their doctrines from Scripture alone, while being unable to prove Sola Scriptura by that very same standard. Instead, we would appeal to passages like 2 Timothy 3:16-17, which tells us that Scripture is God-breathed and profitable, so that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work. But somehow, we turned that into Scripture ALONE is sufficient, Scripture ALONE equips the believer, and Scripture ALONE is the final authority. We were reading words into the text that simply weren't there. And we conveniently overlooked passages like Ephesians 4:11-12, where God gives the Church apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers for the very purpose of equipping the saints. The more I studied Scripture, the more I realized that defending Sola Scriptura required me to impose something upon Scripture that Scripture itself never taught. The foundational doctrine Protestants use to reject Catholic teaching cannot even pass the test they demand of Catholics.

As a Protestant, you are not bound to believe or do anything unless you first decide that it is binding. What your pastor tells you is optional. What the Creeds say is optional. Any interpretation of the Bible is optional. Even which books count as inspired is open to your own judgment. In Protestantism, nothing is binding that your own interpretation cannot overrule. Which is precisely why schism and division are such defining features of Protestantism.