I understand that many do not mean by this phrase that the Bible grounds absolutely all knowledge. However, they do at least mean by it that anything which contradicts the Bible must be false, or that the Bible presides over reason. It is impossible for the Bible to be the supreme epistemological tool due to the fact that the laws of logic intrinsically hold this status. Additionally, with only a few significant exceptions that I will address below, there is no category of knowledge which the Bible touches upon that only the Bible is capable of illuminating. I can already anticipate the straw man fallacies that I would receive if I broached this matter with the average evangelical, who would likely misjudge me to be on the brink of declaring that the Bible is untrue, when I am arguing for no such thing!
If the Bible contradicted itself or any other part of reality to even a slight degree, the Bible could not be true, and this alone proves that the Bible cannot be what all other things are measured against, as it itself must be measured against reason. Reason is the only self-verifying, universal epistemic tool. To deny it, one must use it; the only way it can be false is if it is true. One must grasp the first principles of reason to have even a single intelligible experience of any sort, and, ironically, one must use deductive reasoning to exegete any text. Rationalism, not sola scripture epistemology, conforms to the whole of reality. To even approach the Bible and understand it soundly, one must examine its contents in a rationalistic manner--by not assuming conclusions about the text beforehand and by considering all of the possible options which follow from a given statement.
Even a sola scriptura epistemologist must borrow from rationalism to simply read the Bible in the first place. How contrary this is to the presuppositionalist delusion that rationalism borrows from Christian theism! In fact, a hint of presuppostionalism is at the core of every evangelical proclamation of "sola scriptura" that I have heard, though not every user of the phrase would identify as a presuppositionalist. Logic exists by strictly independent necessity in the absence of everything else, whereas even God himself could not only hypothetically cease to exist [1], but also cannot exist apart from the laws of logic, as he would otherwise not be capable of even being what he is (A is A is a necessary truth that does not depend on God's existence). Logic's metaphysical existence and epistemological dominance are necessary, but the very existence of God is not, for God could vanish, removing creation from existence in the process. But logic is not a created thing, since it cannot not exist.
Logic, introspection, and sensory perceptions are all sources of knowledge that have absolutely nothing to do with the Bible or, indeed, with any divine revelation. First principles (the laws of logic), deductive reasoning, the existence of my consciousness, information gained through introspection, and the existence of my sensory perceptions cannot be illusions. In the same way, the existence of truth, space, and a physical body that houses my consciousness [2] cannot be illusions. It is impossible for me to derive knowledge of these things from the Bible, since I must already exist, grasp the external laws of logic, and use my senses to even pick up a Bible from a spatial location in the material world and begin reading it.
A legion of epistemological limitations prevent me from obtaining various articles of knowledge: I am trapped in the present moment, I cannot prove that my memories correspond to actual past events, I cannot prove that the external world is exactly as I perceive it to be, I am restricted to a particular spatial area by my body, and I cannot escape my body to know what existence as only a consciousness is like. But, due to the tools of logic and introspection, I do know many things with absolute certainty [3]. The Bible is not among these epistemic tools. The Bible is not and cannot be at the core of epistemology, nor can its contents be verified completely.
Furthermore, the Bible is not self-evidently true: only a very small handful of truths are. In fact, the vast majority of its contents, like the vast majority of the content in almost every other writing, cannot be proven in full. The idea that the Bible alone is all that is needed for epistemology is mistaken, self-refuting, and incapable of reflecting reality. In the same way that scientism and sensory empiricism inherently contradict themselves and thus disqualify themselves from being true, sola scriptura epistemology is inescapably, viciously self-refuting. It does not and cannot meet its own standard. If the Bible did say that no knowledge about anything can be obtained apart from it--not from logic, introspection, or the senses--then it would follow by necessity that the Bible is false.
The only categorical matters that the Bible alone can reveal knowledge about are moral truths (Romans 7:7), the personal nature of Yahweh (and by extension the nature of other spiritual beings the Bible describes, like angels and demons), and Christian soteriology. Since one cannot know facts about the nature of objective values by reflecting on one's conscience, as conscience can only inform a being about its own subjective moral emotions, one must have access to the Bible in order to know what values the Christian worldview puts forth. Additionally, since it is impossible for a human to know the character of other minds, the Bible is necessary for knowledge of the personal attributes of Christianity's deity, as well as the knowledge of Christianity's model of salvation. These areas are the only ones where a Christian can legitimately invoke something like sola scriptura, and even then they would still have to rely on reason.
Because nothing in the metaphysics and ethics of the Bible contradicts itself, logical truths, or other external facets of reality, rationalism does not refute the Bible. It ultimately reveals that many aspects of Christianity--like its acknowledgment that God did not create necessary existents like logic and space, its doctrine of substance dualism, and its admission that an uncaused cause of the universe exists--are in perfect alignment with miscellaneous truths that reason exposes. Instead of accepting these facts and rejecting the common ideas behind the phrase "sola scriptura," many evangelicals cling to an impossible framework because it affords them the seeming safety of tradition.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-ramifications-of-axioms.html
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/dreams-and-consciousness.html
[3]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-extent-of-absolute-certainty.html
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