Protestants want to think that anyone can understand the Scriptures for themselves, even if the Bible is dropped from the sky and the person has never been taught anything by any human being. You have clearly seen that this is not so. It is not so with any book at all, in fact, or any art, or any science. Every human art and science require a living tradition to interpret and to hand down. God respects our natures by causing us to depend upon one another even for the proper transmission of His Revelation.
Faith is difficult in one way, and simple in another.
St. Thomas says any washerwoman, through faith, is wiser than the greatest philosopher through his reason. The need for an authority to interpret Scripture is not hard to see in itself. It took me a long time to see it, however, because I had been conditioned to believe that authority is bad, and I had been taught to read Scripture in a certain way. Intellectual custom can be our greatest friend or our worst enemy, and even the silliest errors can be perpetuated by it. You must register with this board before submitting follow up messages.