SecretAgentMan's Dossier

Here are two questions about Sola Scriptura and my answer, "posing" as a Reformed Christian.

My question rests in how Sola Scriptura could have possibly functioned during the 17-18 centuries before printing became widespread (and affordable) and before the great majority of people in the world were literate? Why would God establish a infallible rule of faith inaccessable to most people?

Because it wasn't inaccessible. We don't think literacy is a sacrament. What is more important than the ability to read is the ability to understand and live the word in faith. That understanding was alive in the middle ages, although it was often obscured or persecuted by the Catholic hierarchy. I hope I've answered your question. Now, if you want me to explain why hinging salvation on other people's summaries and estimates of what Scripture says doesn't require submission to a Magisterium that Dare Not Speak Its Name, this will take more time.

Further, before the Scriptures were compiled (and parts of it written for that matter) to what Scriptures were Christians to turn for this infallible rule of faith?

The infallible rule of faith is in Scripture, but the existence of the rule isn't confined to Scripture. For example, it exists in a certain sense outside of Scripture, in the lives of people who live that rule and preach it to others. The infallible rule of faith was entirely committed to Scripture by the end of the Apostolic age so that all Christians would have access to it (or to summaries and estimates of it, see above). Nothing prevented God from speaking about Christ before He was born, and in a somewhat similar (but not at all identical) way the Apostles spoke the Gospel before Scripture was canonically complete. I hope I've answered your question. Now, if you want me to distinguish this from an infallible Magisterium of Nine Sacred Scribes cooperating with the Holy Spirit to hand on the Gospel through the custody of a Magisterium that Dare Not Speak Its Name, this will take even more time.