The Three Sources of Church Authority (Article)

You have probably heard the phrase “sola scriptura,” which is used by many Protestant religions to describe their authority as coming from Scripture alone. Martin Luther originally defined the doctrine of using Scripture as the sole source of theological authority in the midst of frustrations with things happening within the Church’s hierarchy during the Protestant Reformation. To this day, the source of authority remains one of the defining differences between the Catholic faith and many other Christian denominations. Today, we’ll take a look at the Catholic Church’s three sources of authority – Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium – and why we hold all three to be equal sources in the passing on of the Faith.

Excerpt taken from The Three Sources of Church Authority blog, published by Corpus Christi Catholic Church of Phoenix, AZ on August 19, 2020.

Think of our three sources of authority as a three-legged stool. No single source is more important than any other and they all work together in a cohesive and unitive way. Our Faith is dependent on all three, equally and simultaneously, which have been given to us as a gift of insurance from God, protecting the truth from our faulty human natures forever.