Is the Bible for the Common Man? Can men read God's Word and not have to have an intermediatry such as a priest, minister, or even commentary?......

This is a critical point with regards to the History of the Bible, because for Centuries a widely held and unscrutinized error has prevailed that there must be a special class of persons, a mediating priesthood who must go to God for the believer and offer sacrifices like the Ancient Levites. This special "class" of people, were trained and privy to the knowledge and interpretation of scriptures: the Roman Church held for centuries and even today that the common man was not capable of properly interpreting Scripture, and that the Bible was dangerous in the hands of 'bourgeois' persons.

FIDEISM VS FIDE ET RATIO: BE 'REASONABLE'.

Fideism (Latin fides, faith). A philosophical term meaning a system of philosophy or an attitude of mind, which, denying the power of unaided human reason to reach certitude, affirms that the fundamental act of human knowledge consists in an act of faith, and the supreme criterion of certitude is authority.

A position of greater clarity, in Wikipedia defines Fideism as

In Christian theology, fideism refers to any of a number of positions. It is occasionally used to refer to a belief that Christians are saved by faith alone: for which see sola fide. This position is sometimes called solifidianism. A more widely used meaning for the term is that fideism essentially teaches that reason is more or less irrelevant to faith. Specifically, fideism teaches that arguments for the existence of God are fallacious and irrelevant, and have nothing to do with the truth of Christian theology. Its argument in essence goes: Christian theology teaches that people are saved by faith. But, if God's existence can be proven, either empirically or logically, faith becomes irrelevant. Therefore, if Christian theology is true, no proof of God's existence is possible.

fideism Belief that religious doctrines rest exclusively on faith {Lat. fides}, instead of on reason. In various forms, fideism was maintained by philosophers as diverse as Pascal, Bayle, and Kierkegaard. Recommended Reading: Delbert J. Hanson, Fideism and Hume's Philosophy: Knowledge, Religion and Metaphysics (Peter Lang, 1993) {at Amazon.com} and Terence Penelhum, God and Skepticism: A Study in Skepticism and Fideism (Reidel, 1983) {at Amazon.com}.

In 1998, in the Pope's encyclical mentioned above, Fideism was declared a Heresy that must be avoided. Now, that is a most unusual statement, for the word Fi has to do with "Faith" and deism has the meaning of God or deity, so the Pope essentially declared faith in God a heresy.The Catholic position is called "Fides et Ratio" and indicates that mere faith in God alone can not be trusted. They argue that human reason must be added to reach God, or an understanding of God. These two positions of Fideism vs Fides et Ratio have characterized one of the major schisms between faith and a man-made religion.

Part of the problem in the debate is that each side tends to skew the position of the other side, although the fundamental positions are very clear. The Roman Church believes that human reason is not only allowable in issues of faith but is mandated and god-given but they almost always implicitly put human reasonings and agreed upon positions over the Word of God, or the Bible, and herein is the fatal error.

Evangelicals and Fundamentals are taught from the beginning that the Word of God is inerrant, pure perfect, and "not given to private interpretation", in other words, is is self-evident under the light of the HOly Spirit. This position is the position that Scripture clearly teaches:

Ps 119 the longest psalm attends to the Word being true, pure and perfect and the Way of Life.

Ps 19 refers to the Word of God as pure and perfect as silver tried 7 times.

FINDING GOD: FAITH OR REASON

SOLA SCRIPTURA, THE COMMON MAN AND FAITH IN GOD.