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Sola Scriptura is about as Biblical as what the Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses believe.

I'm pouring myself a drink before this gets started.

"Sola Scriptura is about as Biblical as what the Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses believe."

PROTESTANTS ALL BELIEVE CHRIST IS PART OF THE TRINITY AND NIETHER THE MORMANS OR JW'S BELIEVE IN HIS DIETY.

HOW DO YOU DRAW A COMPARISON?

Checking in.

2 Tim. 3:16 - also, these inspired Old Testament Scriptures Paul is referring to included the deuterocanonical books which the Protestants removed from the Bible 1,500 years later.

This is about as accurate as Mormon historical claims about the Americas or JW predictions about Christ's second coming in 1878 and 1914. The author neglected to mention such luminaries as Pope Gregory the Great, St. Jerome, and a great many others in his list of "Protestants" who "removed the deuterocanonical books from the Bible". Cardinal Catjen, Luther's adversary, and probably the foremost RC scholar of the day wrote this:

"Here we close our commentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament. For the rest (that is, Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees) are counted by St Jerome out of the canonical books, and are placed amongst the Apocrypha, along with Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, as is plain from the Prologus Galeatus. Nor be thou disturbed, like a raw scholar, if thou shouldest find anywhere, either in the sacred councils or the sacred doctors, these books reckoned as canonical. For the words as well of councils as of doctors are to be reduced to the correction of Jerome. Now, according to his judgment, in the epistle to the bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus, these books (and any other like books in the canon of the bible) are not canonical, that is, not in the nature of a rule for confirming matters of faith. Yet, they may be called canonical, that is, in the nature of a rule for the edification of the faithful, as being received and authorised in the canon of the bible for that purpose. By the help of this distinction thou mayest see thy way clearly through that which Augustine says, and what is written in the provincial council of Carthage."
(In ult. Cap. Esther. Taken from A Disputation on Holy Scripture by William Whitaker (Cambridge: University, 1849), p. 48.)

Cordially,

Sola Scriptura is about as Biblical as what the Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses believe.

Which is why only the authentic Jewish Tradition can interpret the Bible.

Sola Scriptura is about as Biblical as what the Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses believe.

Gratuitous remarks about Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses do not make your case any more convincing.

Uh-oh.

No time to rebut, too busy.

However, I am very impressed with the amount of effort you've put into your deception. With folks like you around I am certain the RCC will be around to continue deceiving their faithful all the way to hell for years to come!

Great effort!

Bravo, JDeM! Very Orthodox, as I would expect from a Uniate! Really excellent. Thank-you!

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Sola Scriptura is about as Biblical as what the Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses believe.

That's a nice way to set the tone for the thread.

Congratulations.

Bless you, Joseph DeMaistre, for the bold initiative to step forward on this topic. Catholics who enjoy solid apologetics should find this thread to be truly illuminating.

THE PRACTICAL PROBLEMS OF SOLA SCRIPTURA
James Akin
Simply stated, the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura ("Scripture alone") teaches that every teaching in Christian theology (everything pertaining to "faith and practice") must be able to be derived from Scripture alone. This is expressed by the Reformation slogan Quod non est biblicum, non est theologicum ("What is not biblical is not theological," cf. Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology, Richard A. Muller, Baker, 1985).

An essential part of this doctrine, as it has been historically articulated by Protestants, is that theology must be done without allowing Tradition or a Magisterium (teaching authority) any binding authority. If Tradition or a Magisterium could bind the conscience of the believer as to what he was to believe then the believer would not be looking to Scripture alone as his authority.

A necessarily corollary of the doctrine of sola scriptura is, therefore, the idea of an absolute right of private judgment in the interpretation of the Scriptures. Each individual has the final prerogative to decide for himself what the correct interpretation of a given passage of Scripture means, irrespective of what anyone—or everyone—else says. If anyone or even everyone else together could tell the believer what to believe, Scripture would not be his sole authority; something else would have binding authority. Thus, according to sola scriptura, any role Tradition, a Magisterium, Bible commentaries, or anything else may play in theology is simply to suggest interpretations and evidence to the believer as he makes his decision. Each individual Christian is thus put in the position of being his own theologian.

Of course, we all know that the average Christian does not exercise this role in any consistent way, even the average person admitted by Fundamentalists to be a genuine, "born again" believer. There are simply too many godly grannies who are very devout in their faith in Jesus, but who are in no way inclined to become theologians.

Not only is the average Christian totally disinclined to fulfill the role of theologian, but if they try to do so, and if they arrive at conclusions different than those of the church they belong to—an easy task considering the number of different theological issues—then they will quickly discover that their right to private judgment amounts to a right to shut up or leave the congregation. Protestant pastors have long realized (in fact, Luther and Calvin realized it) that, although they must preach the doctrine of private judgment to ensure their own right to preach, they must prohibit the exercise of this right in practice for others, lest the group be torn apart by strife and finally break up. It is the failure of the prohibition of the right of private judgment that has resulted in the over 20,000 Christian Protestant denominations listed in the Oxford University Press's World Christian Encyclopedia.

The disintegration of Protestantism into so many competing factions, teaching different doctrines on key theological issues (What kind of faith saves? Is baptism necessary? Needed? Is baptism for infants? Must baptism be by immersion only? Can one lose salvation? How? Can it be gotten back? How? Is the Real Presence true? Are spiritual gifts like tongues and healing for today? For everyone? What about predestination? What about free will? What about church government?) is itself an important indicator of the practical failure of the doctrine of private judgment, and thus the doctrine of sola scriptura.

However, there is a whole set of practical presuppositions that the doctrine of sola scriptura makes, every one of which provides not just an argument against the doctrine, but a fatal blow to it. Sola scriptura simply cannot be God's plan for Christian theology.

In fact, it could never even have been thought to be God's plan

before a certain stage in European history because, as we will see, it could have only arisen after a certain technological development which was unknown in the ancient world. Before that one development, nobody would have ever thought that sola scriptura could be the principle God intended people to use, meaning it was no accident that the Reformation occurred when it did.

If God had intended the individual Christian to use sola scriptura as his operating principle then it would have to be something the average Christian could implement. We can therefore judge whether sola scriptura could have been God's plan for the individual Christian by asking whether the average Christian in world history could have implemented it.

Not only that, but since God promised that the Church would never pass out of existence (Matt. 16:18, 28:20), the normal Christian of each age must be able to implement sola scriptura, including the crucial patristic era, when the early Church Fathers hammered out the most basic tenets of Christian orthodoxy.

It is in this practical area that the doctrine comes crashing down, for it has a number of presuppositions which are in no way true of the average Christian of world history, and certainly not of the average Christian of early Church history.

First, if each Christian is to make a thorough study of the Scriptures and decide for himself what they mean (even taking into consideration the interpretations of others) then it follows that he must have a copy of the Scriptures to use in making his thorough study (a non-thorough study being a dangerous thing, as any Protestant apologist warning one against the cults and their Bible study tactics will tell you). Thus the universal application of sola scriptura presupposes the mass manufacturing of books, and of the Bible in particular.

This, however, was completely impossible before invention of the printing press, for without that there could not be enough copies of the Scriptures for the individual Christians to use. Sola scriptura therefore presupposes the inventing of the printing press, something that did not happen for the first 1,400 years of Church history (which will be the almost three-quarters of it if the world ends any time soon).

It is often noted by even Protestant historians that the Reformation could not have taken off like it did in the early 1500s if the printing press had not been invented in the mid-1400s, and this is more true than they know, because the printing press not only allowed the early Protestant to mass produce works containing their teachings about what the Bible meant, it allowed the mass production of Bible itself (as Catholics were already doing; one does realize, of course, that the Gutenberg Bible and the other versions of the Bible being produced before Protestantism were all Catholic Bibles).

Without the ability to mass produce copies of the Scriptures for the individual Christians to interpret, the doctrine of sola scriptura could not function, since one would only have very limited access to the texts otherwise—via the Scripture readings at Mass and the costly, hand-made copies of the Bible kept on public display at the church. Thus sola scriptura presupposes the printing press.

This is a key reason why the Reformation happened when it did—several decades after the invention of the printing press. It took time for the idea of the printing press to make its mark on the European mind and get people excited about the idea of easily available books. It was in this heady atmosphere, the first time in human history when dozens of ancient works were being mass produced and sold, that people suddenly got excited with the thought, "Hey! We could give copies of the Bible to everyone! Everyone could read the Scriptures for themselves!"—a thought which led very quickly into sola scriptura in the minds of those who wished to oppose historic Christian theology, as it would provide a justification for their own desire to depart from orthodoxy ("Hey, I read the Scriptures, and this is what they said to me!").

Of course, the invention of the printing press does not itself enable us to give Bibles to every Christian in the world (as all the calls for Bibles to be sent to Russia illustrate), which leads to the next practical presupposition of sola scriptura...

Second, besides the printing press, sola scriptura also presupposes the universal distribution of books and of the Bible in particular. For it is no good if enough copies of the Bible exist but they can't be gotten into the hands of the average believer. There thus must be a distribution network capable of delivering affordable copies of the Bible to the average Christian.

This is the case today in the developed world; however, even today we cannot get enough Bibles into many lands due to economic and political restraints, as the fund raising appeals of Bible societies and their stories of Bible smuggling inform us. However, in the great majority of Christian history, the universal distribution of books would have been totally impossible even in the what is now the developed world. During most of Church history, the "developed world" was undeveloped.

The political systems, economies, logistical networks, and travel infrastructure that make the mass distribution of Bibles possible today simply did not exist for three-quarters of Church history. There was no way to get the books to the peasants, and no way the peasants could have afforded them in the first place. There just wasn't enough cash in circulation (just try giving a printer 5,000 chickens for the 1,000 Bibles he has just printed—much less keeping the chickens alive and transported from the time the peasants pay them to the time the printer gets them).

Third, if the average Christian is going to read the Scriptures and decide for himself what they mean then he obviously must be able to read. Having someone read them to him simply is not sufficient, not only because the person would only be able to do it occasionally (what with a bunch of illiterates to read to), but also because the person needs to be able to go over the passage multiple times, looking at its exact wording and grammatical structure, to be able to quickly flip to other passages bearing on the topic to formulate the different aspects of a doctrine as he is thinking about it, and finally to be able to record his insights so he doesn't forget them and he can keep the evidence straight in his mind. He therefore must be literate and able to read for himself. Thus sola scriptura presupposes universal literacy.

Fourth, if the average Christian is going to make a study of what Scripture says and decide what it teaches, he must possess adequate scholarly support material, for he must either be able to read the texts in the original languages or have material capable of telling him when there is a translation question that could affect doctrine (for example, does the Greek word for "baptize" mean "immerse" or does it have a broader meaning? does the biblical term for "justify" mean to make righteous in only a legal sense or sometimes in a broader one?).

He must also have these scholarly support works (commentaries and such) to suggest to him possible alternate interpretations to evaluate, for no one person is going to be able to think of every interpretive option on every passage of Scripture that is relevant to every major Christian doctrine. No Protestant pastor (at least no pastors who are not in extreme anti-intellectual circles) would dream of formulating his views without such support materials, and he thus cannot expect the average Christian to do so either. Indeed! The average Christian is going to need such support materials even more than a trained pastor. Thus sola scriptura also presupposes the possession—not just the existence—of adequate support materials.

Fifth, if the average Christian is to do a thorough study of the Bible for himself, then he obviously must have adequate time in which to do this study. If he is working in the fields or a home (or, later, in the factory) for ten, twelve, fifteen, or eighteen hours a day, he obviously doesn't have time to do this, especially not in addition to the care and raising of his family and his own need to eat and sleep and recreate. Not even a Sunday rest will provide him with the adequate time, for nobody becomes adept in the Bible just by reading the Bible on Sundays—as Protestants stress to their own members when encouraging daily Bible reading. Thus sola scriptura presupposes the universal possession of adequate leisure time in which to make a thorough study the Bible for oneself.

Sixth, even if a Christian had adequate time to study the Bible sufficiently, it will do him no good if he doesn't have a diet sufficiently nutritious to let his brain function properly and his mind work clearly. This is something we often forget today because our diets are so rich, but for most of Christian history the average person had barely enough food to survive, and it was almost all bread. "Everything else," as the British historian James Burke put it, "was just something you ate with bread"—as a condiment or side-dish. This means that the average Christian of world history was malnourished, and as any public school dietitian can tell you, malnutrition causes an inability to study and learn properly. That is one of the big motivating forces behind the school lunch program. If kids don't eat right, they don't study right, and they don't learn right, because they don't think clearly. The same is true of Bible students. Thus sola scriptura also presupposes universal nutrition.

Seventh, if the average Christian is going to evaluate competing interpretations for himself then he must have a significant amount of skill in evaluating arguments. He must be able to recognize what is a good argument and what is not, what is a fallacy and what is not, what counts as evidence and what does not. That is quite a bit of critical thinking skill, and anyone who has ever tried to teach basic, introductory logic to college students or anyone who had tried to read and grade the persuasive essays they write for philosophy tests can tell you (I'm speaking from personal experience here), that level of critical thinking does not exist in the average, literate, well-nourished, modern college senior, much less the average, illiterate, malnourished, Medieval peasant. This is especially true when it comes to the abstract concepts and truth claims involved in philosophy and theology. Thus sola scriptura also presupposes a high level of universal education in critical thinking skills (a level which does not even exist today).

Therefore sola scriptura presupposes (1) the existence of the printing press, (2) the universal distribution of Bibles, (3) universal literacy, (4) the universal possession of scholarly support materials, (5) the universal possession of adequate time for study, (6) universal nutrition, and (7) a universal education in a high level of critical thinking skills. Needless to say, this group of conditions was not true in the crucial early centuries of the Church, was not true through the main course of Church history, and is not even true today. The non-existence of the printing press alone means sola scriptura was totally unthinkable for almost three-quarters of Christian history!

All of this is besides the limitations we mentioned earlier—the fact that the average Christian, even the average devout Christian has no inclination whatsoever to conduct the kind of Bible study needed to become his own theologian and the fact that he is encouraged by many pressures from his own pastor and congregation (including the threat of being cast out) to fall in line and not challenge—especially publicly challenge—the party platform.

Christianity For The Common Man?

It is thus hard to think of sola scriptura as anything but the theory spawned by a bunch of idealistic, Renaissance-era dilettantes—people who had an interest in being their own theologians, who had a classical education in critical thinking skills, who had adequate nutrition, who had plenty of leisure time for study, who had plenty of scholarly support materials, who had good reading skills, who had access to Bible-sellers, and most importantly, who had printed Bibles!

The average Christian today, even the average Christian in the developed world, does not fit that profile, and the average Christian in world history certainly did not, much less the average Christian in the early centuries. What this means, since God does not ask a person to do what they are incapable of doing, is that God does not expect the average Christian of world history to use sola scriptura. He expects the average Christian to obtain and maintain his knowledge of theology in some other way.

But if God expects the average Christian to obtain and maintain the Christian faith without using sola scriptura, then sola scriptura is not God's plan.

http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/PRACTICL.htm

Exquisite. Bookmarked.

That being said, I doubt any good will come from posting it. The YOPIOS Eaters, the TULIP Patrol, the Holy Rollers, Covered-Dishers and Snake-Handlers are even now chargin' up the ol' vitriol tanks for a good old fashioned FR flamewar. Cry FRihad!

Love the handle, by the way.

Well, I also have noticed that nowhere in scripture does it say "sola scriptura."

But I see no particular point in saying it unless someone attacks the Catholic Church. Then I point out that Sola Scriptura is really impossible. You're always taking someone's authority on what the scriptures say. Some parts are plain, some are difficult.

I see no reason why Protestants should follow that rule if the Spirit guides them that way. Following scripture is certainly better than following the latest homosexual or woman bishop of the Anglican Church.

I think the fullness of Christianity is found in the Catholic Church, but I also think there is much to admire among Evangelicals whom I know. I will defend my beliefs, but see no particular reason to attack the beliefs of others gratuitously.

"Scripture also mandates the use of tradition."

No, it does not. If it did, you would have showed the clear, authoritative and unequivocal scripture right up front.

"Luke 1:1-4 ... Luke writes to verify the oral tradition they already received.

No. Luke wrote what he did, that was to verify "everything", and what he did verify, he wrote down. It says nothing about "tradition" itself being truth. Luke 1:3-4, "Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught."

"John 20:30; 21:25 - Jesus did many other things not written in the Scriptures. These have been preserved through the oral apostolic tradition and they are equally a part of the Deposit of Faith."

No. That is not what Scripture says. The whole cut from scipture is this: John 20:30-31, Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. It says nothing whatsoever about anything else. It only says that what was written, is sufficient for belief.

It says nothing about tradition. It says some things were written down and others not. Then there is the period, followed by, "The end".

"Acts 8:30-31; Heb. 5:12 - these verses show that we need help in interpreting the Scriptures.

No. Acts 8:30-31 says, "the man did". It does not apply to everyone.

Hebrews 5:12 applies to slow learners. Hebrews 5:11-12, We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!

" We cannot interpret them infallibly on our own.

If this were true, then no one could.

" We need divinely appointed leadership within the Church to teach us.

No. The ability to read, and logic applies.

"Acts 15:1-14 – Peter resolves the Church’s first doctrinal issue regarding circumcision without referring to Scriptures."

Peter is not tradition. Also, there is no doctrinal question here. Peter is a primary source. He is a direct witness. His testimony is not hearsay. Note also that God made no distinction between the Apostles and anyone. Peter in fact said, Acts 15:8-9, "God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith."

"Acts 17:28 – Paul quotes the writings of the pagan poets when he taught at the Aeropagus. Thus, Paul appeals to sources outside of Scripture to teach about God."

Which means I can use many various sources to learn about God. As long as I use His word contained in the Gospels as a foundation and reference.

"1 Cor. 5:9-11 - this verse shows that a prior letter written to Corinth is equally authoritative but not part of the New Testament canon. Paul is again appealing to a source outside of Scripture to teach the Corinthians. This disproves Scripture alone."

So? The passage does not mandate tradition. Neither does it negate the primacy of god's words contained in the Gospels as the fundamental reference to which all else is to be refered to.

"1 Cor. 11:2 - Paul commends the faithful to obey apostolic tradition, and not Scripture alone."

"1 Cor 11:2, "I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the teachings, just as I passed them on to you." Paul's teaching. He is not tradition and he gives no command to obey tradition.

"Phil. 4:9 - Paul says that what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, do. There is nothing ever about obeying Scripture alone."

same as above. Also, note this is the NT he's talking about, not tradition.

"Col. 4:16 - this verse shows that a prior letter written to Laodicea is equally authoritative but not part of the New Testament canon. Paul once again appeals to a source outside of the Bible to teach about the Word of God."

See above, under "other sources". Other sourses are not primary references. The word of God Himself contained in the Gospels is. That's logic. The use of any other sources as a primary reference is illogical. The other source must be referred to God's word.

"1 Thess. 2:13 – Paul says, “when you received the word of God, which you heard from us..” How can the Bible be teaching first century Christians that only the Bible is their infallible source of teaching if, at the same time, oral revelation was being given to them as well? Protestants can’t claim that there is one authority (Bible) while allowing two sources of authority (Bible and oral revelation)."

The writers of the NT Gospels wrote down what they knew and had Matthew, John, Peter and the other Apostles for reference. Now we have what they wrote for reference.

"1 Tim. 3:14-15 - Paul prefers to speak and not write,"

Sometimes I prefer root beer, instead of Coke.

"2 Tim. 2:2 - Paul says apostolic tradition is passed on to future generations, but he says nothing about all apostolic traditions being eventually committed to the Bible."

2 Tim 2, "2And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others." Paul is talking about what he told them, not tradition.

"2 Tim. 3:14 - continue in what you have learned and believed knowing from whom you learned it. Again, this refers to tradition which is found outside of the Bible."

2 Tim 3:14, "But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it," See John 20:30-31. What is written is sufficient for belief.

"James 4:5 - James even appeals to Scripture outside of the Old Testament canon ("He yearns jealously over the spirit which He has made...")"

There's no reference to "scripture" outside the OT.

"2 Peter 1:20 - interpreting Scripture is not a matter of one's own private interpretation. Therefore, it must be a matter of "public" interpretation of the Church. The Divine Word needs a Divine Interpreter. Private judgment leads to divisions, and this is why there are 30,000 different Protestant denominations."

2 Peter 1:20, "Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit."

It Says, that scriture comes from God, nothing more.

"2 Peter 3:15-16 - Peter says Paul's letters are inspired, but not all his letters are in the New Testament canon. "

What is in the Canon is enough.

"Also, Peter's use of the word "ignorant" means unschooled, which presupposes the requirement of oral apostolic instruction that comes from the Church."

Ignorant refers to being ignorant. It presupposes nothing.

"1 John 4:1 - again, God instructs us to test all things, test all spirits. Notwithstanding what many Protestants argue, God's Word is not always obvious."

Logic applies, and God's word in the Gospels is to be used as a foundational reference.

I don't see that your claim, "Scripture also mandates the use of tradition.", has any support at all in that great big list presented.

WHEN EVANGELICALS TREAT CATHOLIC TRADITION LIKE REVELATION Mark P. Shea (Ed. Note: Mark P. Shea, a former Evangelical and now a Catholic, here recounts his thought processes when he was an Evangelical considering the role of tradition, which Evangelicals supposedly reject, in Evangelical belief and practice. The following article is adapted with permission from Shea's book , published this month by Our Sunday Visitor Books (800-348-2440). In the book he examines five areas where Evangelicals unknowingly treat Catholic tradition like authoritative revelation. In this article he discusses three of them.) I wondered: Is it really true that we Evangelicals never treat extra-biblical tradition as authoritative revelation? Is it really the case that Evangelical belief is derived from the clear and unambiguous teaching of the Bible alone? Do we speak forth only what Scripture speaks, keep silent where Scripture is silent, and never bind the conscience of the believer on those questions in which Scripture permits different interpretations? To find out, I decided to try an experiment. I would look at Evangelical—not Catholic—belief and practice to see if there were any evidence of tradition being treated like revelation. I would see if there were any rock-bottom, non-negotiable, can't-do-without-'em beliefs that were not attested (or very weakly attested) in the Bible, yet which we orthodox Evangelicals treated like revelation. If I found such things, and if they had an ancient pedigree, it seemed to me this would tee very strong evidence that the apostolic tradition not only larger than the Bible alone, but had—somehow—been handed down to the present. So I started taking a good long look at non-negotiable Evangelical beliefs as they were actually lived out in my church and churches like it. To my surprise, I found several such weakly attested non-negotiables. The Sanctity Of Human Life Arguably the most pressing issue of our time is the question of the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death. While you are reading this, several thousand preborn babies, ranging in age from first trimester to full term, are going to be legally suctioned, bums, dismembered, or decapitated by skilled professionals who collect large paychecks, walk their dogs, drink soda-pop, and appear to the naked eye as ordinary human beings. As this evil occurs, a bewildered modern society, long ago cut adrift from its Christian roots, will not recoil in horror but will instead flop its hands passively in its lap, register a befuddled shrug of discomfort, and continue lacking the capacity to tell whether or not this is bad. Occasionally, when it is in the mood for righteous indignation, it will watch a Holocaust documentary on cable television and shake its head at how the people of Germany could have permitted such things. Meanwhile, the culture of death will not sleep. Rather, emboldened by our morel paralysis in the face of so obvious an evil, the purveyors of "choice" will ask ever more loudly, "If we can do these things when the tree is green, what can we get away with when it is dry? If the life of the helpless infant is cheap when the economy is strong, why not the life of the disabled, aged, and sick when medical costs skyrocket?" So as acquiescence to abortion proceeds apace, thousands of other apparently ordinary people are working day and night—and with steadily growing success—to acquire the right for "qualified medical professionals" to kill innocent human beings whose lives are "unworthy of being lived." They live for Dr. Jack Kevorkian's dream of "Medicide Clinics," where "patients" can be killed by means of "physician-assisted suicide." To that end, initiatives and court cases proliferate across the country seeking to grant, not the "right to die" (we already have that), but the power of doctors (and eventually the state) to kill. It seems obvious to me that the question of the sanctity of human life is a bedrock of Christian morals. If the protection of life from conception to natural death isn't essential to Christian teaching, what is? Surely here we ought to find a sharp dichotomy between the church and the modern world. Right? Wrong. The plain fact is, things don't break down that way. On one side of the cultural divide are not only secularists, but, alas, many liberal Christians who, with trembling devotion to the spirit of the age, dutifully parrot the rhetoric that those who defend human life are "anti-choice." On the other side of the divide are most Evangelicals, conservative members of the mainline Protestant churches, the Catholic and Orthodox churches, and conservative Jews. Yet for 20 centuries absolutely an of Christianity stood staunchly behind the defenseless ones against the culture of death. Indeed, so recent is the minting of the "right to choose" that not even theological liberals were willing to call abortion anything other than a grave sin until the past few decades. That is why we can scarcely find a shred of Christian theology written in favor of abortion and euthanasia before the 1960s and '70s. From the first century to the present, a shoreless ocean of testimony from every sector of the church decries this terrible crime against God and humanity. And we Evangelicals, with very few exceptions, are of one voice with 20 centuries of Christian preaching concerning this most elementary of Christian moral truths. I am proud to number myself among the ranks of pro-life Christians and will never waver from this commitment. But as I began to argue my position with liberal Christians who supported the "right to choose," I did begin to waver in something: my conviction that the irrefutable basis for our pro-life conviction as Evangelicals is Scripture alone. I know the verses that are quoted. "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb" (Ps. 139:13), "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you" (Jer. 1:5), and so forth. I certainly agree that these verses bear oblique witness to a pro-life position. Indeed, I emphatically agree that the pro-life position is an obvious fact of Christian teaching throughout all ages. But in arguing the matter with other Christians who read the same Bible I do, I began to realize that I could not make opposition to abortion and devotion to the sanctity of preborn life an intrinsic, absolutely essential, utterly non-negotiable part of the Christian faith on the basis of Scripture alone. For the fact is, a modern apologist for the culture of death can and does argue that Scripture alone, apart from tradition, is as ambiguous about abortion as it is about the question of just war vs. pacifism—and therefore abortion is a matter of "Christian liberty." Consider: Neither testament gives a clear understanding of the status of unborn life. Is the fetus a human person possessing the same dignity as an infant after birth? Is the conceptus? Is the act of directly causing the death of such a one an act of murder or some lesser offense? Is it an offense at all? No direct answer is ever attempted to these questions anywhere in Scripture. Worse, the indirect ways in which Scripture addresses these issues are very oblique and open to multiple interpretations—apart from tradition. Thus Exodus 21:22 reads: If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, bum for bum, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. Far more questions are raised by this passage than are answered—if we are left to interpret it without reference to Jewish and Christian tradition, as portico Christians urge us to do. For instance, the Hebrew word which is here translated "gives birth prematurely" is in fact much more flexible than this. It means "departs" and can be read as "gives birth prematurely" or as "spontaneously aborts." So does the caveat about "serious injury" apply to the woman or to the miscarried child? Does the Law demand wound for wound for the mother's injury or the unborn's? If the mother is not seriously injured but the child dies, is this what is meant by "no serious injury"? The text does not say. Nor does the rest of Scripture help us. Similarly, the New Testament does not tell us how to understand another difficult Old Testament passage: Numbers 5:20-27. This strange text prescribes an ordeal for suspected adulteresses, in which the suspected woman is placed under oath and made to drink "bitter water that brings a curse." The purpose of the ordeal was to call down a divine curse on the adulteress that will cause her "belly to swell and her thighs [to] waste away" or as the footnotes to NIV Bible put it, to make her "be barren and have a miscarrying womb." If we do not have any larger tradition for understanding such a text—if we "let Scripture interpret Scripture" as we Evangelicals say—it seems that induced miscarriages (i.e., those of adulteresses) ought to be countenanced by the people of God. In short, Scripture does not automatically give one the impression that the Bible lends itself to an irrefutable case for the sanctity of every human life from conception to natural death. At this we Evangelicals may attempt to create a larger interpretive context by "letting Scripture interpret Scripture" again. We might raise the counter example of John the Baptist, moved by the Spirit in Elizabeth's womb when Mary arrived (Lk. 1:41). Is not this a strong indication that even unborn children are persons responsive to the Spirit of God? Is it not a pretty dam good hint that unborn babies are people too? Of course it is. That is, it's a "strong indication" —a hint, a sign, a good possibility. It is not incontrovertible that all children are similarly graced with supernatural gifts, including the supernatural gift of personhood, when they are as yet unformed in their mother's womb. Thus, I know Christians who have actually taken this text as license for first-trimester abortions since babies cannot be felt to kick in before the second trimester. Such Christians are living proof that the bare text of Scripture, apart from the interpretive tradition of Christendom, says nothing clear and definite about abortion or human development anywhere. Instead it gives signs, clues, and hints which individual Christians, forsaking that tradition, can and do interpret in ways that directly contradict one another. "OK," the Evangelical says. "Maybe John the Baptist isn't a biblical pro-life proof, but what about our Lord himself? Surely the personhood of the Second Person of the Trinity at his conception lends his dignity to all human beings from conception onward so that 'whatever you did for one of the least of these' (Mt. 25:40) applies supremely here." Now I happen to agree with this argument. But I have spoken with other well-meaning, Bible-believing Christians (most of them strongly pro-life) who don't. They see no such extension of Christ's dignity to us by the mere fact that Christ was born a human being. They note that Christ is speaking of the "least of these brothers of " and argue that we become his brothers and God's children, not by being born but by being born again. They fear that to protect the unborn child on this basis is ultimately to mislead people into thinking we are holy when we are merely human. Of course, I have counter-arguments to all this and they, of course, have counter-arguments till between us you can't count the counters. But this is hardly evidence of the undeniable clarity of Scripture alone on this crucial point of Christian ethics. "Well then," someone proposes, "maybe Scripture says so little because abortion was unheard of at the time? After all, you don't pass laws against speeding if no one has yet invented the automobile." The difficulty with this theory is that it simply isn't true. Abortion predates Christianity by centuries and it flourished in pagan culture then as it flourishes in our quasi-pagan culture now. That is why the Didache, a manual of Christian instruction composed around A D. 80, during the lifetime of the gospel writers, commands: "You shall not procure an abortion. You shall not destroy a new born child." Nor was the Didache alone in this. The subsequent writings of the post-apostolic period are simply unanimous when it comes to the Christian teaching on this subject. The Epistle of Barnabas, the Letter to Diognetus, the writings of Athenagoras, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Origen, Epiphanius, Jerome, and a vast army of the Fathers, indeed every last Christian theologian who addresses this question until late in this century says exactly the same thing: Abortion is a grave evil and the taking of human life. Yet the odd thing is this: The old writers, the Fathers of the Church closest in time to the apostles, speak of their doctrine both in this area and in many others as definitely decided by the mind of the Church and the tradition of the apostles. For them abortion is contrary, not so much to the Bible, as to the Holy Faith they received from their predecessors. Thus Basil the Great writes (c. 374): UA woman who has deliberately destroyed a fetus must pay the penalty for murder," and, "Those also who give drugs causing abortions are murderers themselves, as well as those who receive the poison which kills the fetus." Yet, for Basil, as for the rest of the Fathers, this teaching, like many others, has been preserved, not only in Scripture, but "in the Church." As he himself says: Of the dogmas and kerygmas preserved in the Church, some we possess from written teaching and others we receive from the tradition of the Apostles, handed on to us in mystery. In respect to piety both are of the same force. No one will contradict any of these, no one, at any rate, who is even moderately versed in matters ecclesiastical. Indeed, were we to try to reject unwritten customs as having no great authority, we would unwittingly injure the Gospel in its vitals. In short, the Faith of which the Fathers speak (including its pro-life ethic) is revealed, not merely by Scripture alone, but by And no one, least of all we Evangelicals, questioned this pro-life teaching until this century. Indeed, the overwhelming number of Evangelicals quite faithfully followed this tradition without it even occurring to us to question it. Why was this, if we were truly deriving our beliefs from the clear and unambiguous teaching of the Bible alone, speaking forth only what Scripture spoke, keeping silent where Scripture was silent, and not binding the conscience of the believer on those questions in which Scripture permits different interpretations? The obvious answer seemed to be that I was looking at a facet of extra-biblical tradition which is so profoundly part of our bones that we Evangelicals never thought to distinguish it from (much less oppose it to) the Scriptures themselves. Indeed, as I looked at it, I began to realize that ; distinct, yet an organic unity like the head and the heart, the right hand and the left. The Scripture gave light, but a very scattered light on this most crucial of issues. The acted like a lens bringing that dancing light into focus. Tradition without Scripture was a darkened lens without a light; but likewise, Scripture without tradition was, on this vital issue, a blurry, unfocused light without a lens. In realizing this, I realized we Evangelicals were no different from Catholics on this score. We were not treating this tradition—the Tradition of Pro-life Interpretation—as a fallible human reading of Scripture. Rather we treated it as absolutely authoritative and therefore as Polygamy The next test of the theory that we Evangelicals derive our essential beliefs from the Bible alone was sparked by something I remembered about two of the greatest figures of Protestant history. In college I had run across the peculiar fact that John Milton, the great Puritan poet and author of , thought that monogamy was unbiblical and had written against it (though he did not actually act on his principles). Milton seems to have had pious reasons for his views: He wished to preserve the biblical patriarchs against what he saw as a threat against their holiness. Milton thought that if polygamy were forbidden, then he "should be forced to exclude from the sanctuary of God as spurious, the holy offspring which sprang from them, yea, the whole of the sons of Israel, for whom the sanctuary itself was made." So he wrote, "Either therefore polygamy is a true marriage, or all children born in that state are spurious; which would include the whole race of Jacob, the twelve holy tribes chosen by God." Of course Milton is remembered primarily as a poet, not a theologian, though he knew his Bible extremely well. Since his views on polygamy were thoroughly at odds with the mainstream Christian thinking, I chalked up my discovery as a historical curiosity of the English Reformation. But to my surprise, years later I discovered that another Bible-believing figure in Protestant history held similar views, and he is not so easily dismissed. His name was Martin Luther. Luther, it seems, was confronted with the question of whether or not Landgrave Philip of Hesse, an important official of his day, might enter into a bigamous marriage. When pressed to render a judgment in the matter, Luther (together with Philip Melancthon) concluded that monogamy was no necessary part of the Christian revelation and that polygamy was a legitimate practice for a Christian. In his words: "I confess that I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not contradict the Scripture." Like Milton, Luther found that the universal Christian condemnation of polygamy was not really provable from Scripture alone. For him, it was therefore a matter of Christian liberty. Now it may be objected that polygamy is hardly the live issue abortion is today. After all, who but a few Mormons and some guests on tabloid television have advocated a return to it in our society? Indeed, Luther and Milton are extraordinary exceptions to the otherwise universal Christian condemnation of polygamy —a condemnation heartily shared by Dr. James Dobson, Chuck Swindoll, John MacArthur, and all other committed, Bible-only Evangelicals. And yet, where does this condemnation come from? For as Milton and Luther pointed out, it is . "Nonsense," said my Evangelical friends. "Jesus forbade polygamy by his words, 'Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another women commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery’" (Mk. 10:11-12). Yet this only proves my point. For such an understanding of our Lord's words depends entirely on the in which the Church habitually reads these words, not on the bare text alone. That is, it depends on a Tradition of Monogamy and not merely on the text. For if we read the text strictly, as Milton and Luther did, we find it only speaks of and remarriage. It nowhere forbids men multiple wives if they retain previous ones. So in this area also, we Evangelicals derive our belief from Scripture Now it may be objected that I am adding a needless interpreter. After all, Paul makes abundantly clear that remarriage (not to mention multiple marriage) is forbidden while one's spouse is still living (Rm. 7:3; 1 Cor. 7:39). And this is true enough—for women. But what of hailing from either a first-century pagan or Jewish culture, both of which permitted male polygamy? If we follow the great Evangelical maxim and "let Scripture interpret Scripture," we are given biblical figures such as Jacob, David, and Solomon, all of whom are spoken of with great approval by God himself and none of whom is informed that male polygamy per se is a sin. If we counter by saying, "Jacob's two wives were a nuisance to him (and he to them)," I reply, Jacob's many sons were a nuisance too, but Scripture still says "be fruitful and multiply." If we retort, "Solomon's many pagan wives fumed his heart after other gods," I reply that the problem, according to Scripture, was that they were pagan, not that they were many (1 Kings 11:2-6). If we cite the command in Deuteronomy 17:17 warning against having many wives, we must also note that the same passage (v.16) warns against having many horses. Does the Law therefore forbid a man to have more than one horse as well? Letting Scripture interpret Scripture, it would appear this is not the intent of the Deuteronomic warning since David is specifically told by God that many wives were given into his arms by the Lord himself and were, apparently, part of the many blessings God heaped on him (2 Sm. 12:8). Rather, the passage in Deuteronomy is quite clearly a warning against greed, not polygamy. Now let us be clear. I am not Joseph Smith or Hugh Heiner. I do not advocate a return to male polygamy or the keeping of harems. Rather, my point is that Christianity has advocated polygamy—has opposed it always and everywhere as a thing essentially contrary to the will of God the Old Testament. And we Evangelicals stand unreservedly on this fact and regard male polygamy not merely as chauvinistic and impractical, but as obvious sin. Yet we have little cause to do so on the basis of Scripture alone, as Luther and Milton cogently argue. With one minor exception, is a man forbidden to take more than one wife at a time. That exception is Paul's command to overseers (and overseers) to be a husband of "but one wife" (1 Tm. 3:2; Ti. 1:6). Yet the very fact that Paul gives this command only to overseers suggests (if we have no tradition outside Scripture) that other Christian men could have more than one if they liked. After all, if monogamy were as crucial as we believe it to be and if Paul were preaching in a culture that still embraced polygamy, one would expect it to be a fairly constant theme in his moral teaching. Yet in all his other discussions of "practical Christian living" in every book from Romans to 2 Thessalonians, Paul never mentions a demand for monogamy on the part of the rank and file believer, even in strongly polygamous pagan cultures like Corinth. On the contrary, only in his instructions to overseers, whose special responsibilities demand simplicity of life, does Paul mention this demand for monogamy. Small wonder Milton and Luther came to view it as optional. And yet we Evangelicals ignore these champions of purely biblical revelation and treat monogamy, not as a matter of liberty, but as a self-evident aspect of the Faith incumbent on every Christian. Further, we do so, not on the basis of polygamy's impracticality or incongeniality to feminism, but on the firm conviction that Cod calls it a sin. And the church for its entire history holds this view, even when polygamy was perfectly acceptable to the larger culture, both Jewish and pagan. Which brought me to a puzzle. On the one hand, I could see how American Christians at the end of the 20th century could certainly be culturally conditioned to regard polygamy as dead. Common sense, peer pressure, and feminism would be a strong deterrent to any lingering vestiges of polygamy left in the American male psyche. But how does this modern culture shift account for the fact that polygamy was just as dead in fourth-century Christian teaching, when feminism was not a particularly commanding presence in the media, and ordinary culture was enthusiastic about male polygamy? Basil the Great had never seen a copy of magazine and was surrounded by a fourth-century culture uninfluenced by the monogamous teachings of Focus on the Family. Nonetheless Basil wrote of multiple marriage that "such a state is no longer called marriage but polygamy or, indeed, a moderate fornication." Those engaged in it were ordered by him to be excommunicated for up to five years and to be restored to fellowship "only after they have shown some fruitful repentance." This opposition to polygamy, Basil makes clear, is not something he invented any more than Dr. Dobson did. On the contrary, Basil says that these teachings are "accepted as our usual practice, not from the canons but in conformity with our predecessors." In other words, not from the apostolic writings but from the in force in the whole Church from its remotest antiquity. But surely, I thought, this is very odd. I had been taught that the embrace of such extra-biblical tradition always represented a move paganism, not away from it. It was my understanding that the early Church had departed from the high and hard truth of the Bible after the death of the apostles and, seeking human approval, had allowed all sorts of pagan notions to creep in (like purgatory, devotion to Mary, superstitions about relics, and sacraments). Why then, with all this "pagan creep" going on, would the Church staunchly oppose both paganism and Judaism in the matter of polygamy when the Bible was very ambiguous on the matter? Surely if one was going to accommodate paganism it would be here, wouldn't it? Yet the facts were clear: Even though male polygamy was lawful in both pagan culture and the Old Testament, even though polygamy continues to this day among Jews in Muslim countries, even though Jesus and the apostles never speak against it in the Scriptures explicitly, still the post-apostolic Church, claiming apostolic tradition as its authority, speaks against it as plainly contrary to the teaching of Christ and does everything it can to root out the practice as quickly as possible. Indeed, the early Church's depth of conviction is so strong that it reverberates throughout the Protestant world after the break with Catholicism. Moreover, it remains so strong down to the present that it never occurred to us Evangelicals to question whether there is any other way of reading our Bibles. Everybody (even an unbeliever) knows that the ban on polygamy is an essential, non-negotiable part of Christian teaching and always has been. And yet, I asked myself, if this is not treating tradition like revelation, what is it? The Trinity A multi-culturalist Christian might say to some missionary in Muslim lands, "Who are you to impose your values and ask the Muslim to renounce his customary acceptance of polygamy? Bring him the gospel, to tee sure. But don't force your Western interpretation of Scripture on him and cause him to stumble." Similarly, there are Protestants of the liberal variety who say, "Abortion is not necessarily a sin by biblical lights. We will simply have to treat it as a matter of Christian liberty as we did with artificial contraception in this century. But on the really essentials of Christianity, I'm solid. That is why I don't go in for either Catholic traditions or for right-wing Evangelical ones lifted from Catholicism. I'm just a straightforward Trinitarian Christian without a right-wing political ax to grind." To this I raise two objections. First, playing this sort of "Simon says" game with Scripture, looking only for direct and explicit proof texts and flatly ignoring unanimous tradition where it also speaks as revelation for 20 centuries, leads to a lot more than loose attitudes toward sex. Abortion and polygamy are not the only issues ambiguously addressed by Scripture. A "Simon says" hermeneutic also transforms necrophilia, tissue harvesting of anesthetized condemned prisoners, genetic experimentation, slaughter of civilian populations in war, and many other outrages into matters of personal taste, cultural whim, or political expedience. When this happens, the Christian's own "Simon says" theology prevents him from working against the power of the state or the culture to prevent these evils. However, even this is small beer from an eternal perspective. The question, "How shall we then live?" is simpler than the ultimate problem posed by Christ himself: "Who do you say I am?" A strictly Bible-only form of revelation cannot get us to our orthodox Evangelical answer to Christ's question. Indeed, we cannot remain Evangelical in any meaningful sense at all without treating tradition as though it also preserves revelation. For, as I discovered, trinitarianism, which is an absolutely essential hallmark of Evangelicalism, is just as dependent on tradition's reading of Scripture as the ethical strictures we have examined. What could be more central to Evangelical belief than the deity of Christ? This is the great thundering truth proclaimed by every good preacher of the gospel. If that is not essential Christianity, then there is no such thing as Christianity. Yet as I began to read Scripture and look at church history, I began to realize there are ways of denying the deity of Christ which can easily slip in under the Evangelical radar screen, ways which reverence him and call loudly for trust in Scripture as the one and only source of revelation, yet which firmly consign Christ to the status of mere creature just as surely as does the most ardent skeptic. Most famous among these ways is a third-century movement known as Arianism. Arians were principally concerned to preserve the Oneness of God from pagan polytheism. They argued cogently from Scripture. They were well-trained theologians who could read Scripture in the original tongues. The only problem was that they had the idea that Jesus was not truly God but only a sort of godlet or superior created being. In defense of this idea, the Arians rejected tradition and pointed to texts like "the Father is greater than I" (Jn. 14:28) and "Why do you call me good?... No one is good except God alone" (Mk. 10:18). They could come up with plausible explanations for terms and expressions which we Evangelicals think could only point to Christ's divinity. For example, Arians said the statement, "I and the Father are one" (Jn. 10:30) refers to oneness of , not oneness of being. They pointed out that Scripture refers to supernatural created beings as "sons of God" (Job 38:7 NAB) without intending they are one in being with the Father. They observed that even mere humans were called "gods" (Ps. 8:2-6; Jn. 10:34-36), without the implication that they are God. Therefore they inferred that the Son, supernatural though he may be (as angels, principalities, and powers are supernatural), is neither co-eternal with the Father nor one in being with him. Now many Christians today regard all this wrangling over technical philosophical phrases like "coeternal" and "of one being" as just so much theological techno-babble. We lament that the early Church got so hung up on "cold Christs and tangled Trinities." We shake our heads and say we need to forget all that head knowledge and just magnify the Lord Jesus and worship him. We say well-intended things like, "Let's just get back to basics and return to the simple biblical message that Christ died for us to take away our sins and give us a share in the life of God." But this simple biblical message is precisely whet Arianism denies-and it uses the Bible to do it! To deny that Christ is one in being with the Father is to deny that he can ever be worshipped because it is to deny that he is God. To deny that he is God is to deny that his death meant any more for a sinful humanity than the death of any other creature. Likewise it is to deny that he can ever give us a share in the life of God. Even the Son, however glorious, cannot give what he does not have. How would we Evangelicals argue against Arianism using Scripture alone? We'd say that John speaks of the "only begotten" and says of him that he "was God" and was "with God in the beginning" (Jn. 1:1-2, 18; 3:16). We would reply that, although the "Trinity" is not in Scripture, nonetheless the of Trinity is there. But a good Arian would be quick to point out that God plainly says, "You are my Son; today I have become your Father" (Heb. 1:5), which implies that there was a time the Son was begotten. In other words, the Arian can argue that there was a time when the Son was not. But there was never a time when the Father was not. He is without beginning. Therefore, according to the Arian, the Son does not share God's eternal, beginningless essence. This amounts to a denial of the deity of Christ. Great and supernatural as he may be compared to the rest of creation (and Paul implies he is a creature when he calls trim the first-loom over all [Col. 1:15], doesn't he?), nonetheless he is a creature, says the Arian. Very well then, is my point, "Be Arian"? No. My point is that an Evangelical, relying on Scripture alone and "never binding the conscience of the believer on those questions in which Scripture permits different interpretations," is in a poor position to say definitively, " be Arian." Arianism has just the sort of scriptural ammo which today leads, not so much to a triumph of Arianism as to a stalemate between Arianism and orthodoxy in the Evangelical arena. For Arian "simplicity" is not dead. Indeed, that enormous marketplace of ideas called the Internet teems with Arians from various sects who have a field day as simply an "alternative Christian theology," and we Bible-only Evangelicals are remarkably weak in argument with them. I cannot count the times I have seen orthodox Evangelicals finally retreat from the issue with some variation on, "Well, I just feel you're wrong." How then, I wondered, can we even be sure of this foundation stone of the Faith if the ambiguity of Scripture made it too a "matter of liberty" according to our own Evangelical criteria? I discovered the answer as I listened to one of those radio call-in shows where theologians tackle various questions about the Bible. The host of this show was a solid Evangelical who was always very careful to speak of Scripture alone as the bottom line of revelation. Yet the odd thing was, when a particularly articulate exponent of anti-trinitarianism called and pointed out the typical Arian readings of various Scriptures, the host had one final bottom line the bottom line. After citing various counter-Scriptures (and receiving more Arian readings by the caller until yet another stalemate seemed imminent), the host finally said, in essence, "Your interpretation is simply not what historic Christianity has ever understood its own Bible to mean." He then asked the Arian caller if he was really prepared to insist that 20 centuries of Christians (including people who had heard the apostles with their own ears and who clearly regarded Jesus as God) had been utterly wrong about the central fact of their faith while he alone was right? This made sense. It seemed plain to me that it was idle for the Arian caller to wrench Scripture away from 20 centuries of ordinary Christian interpretation of so crucial a matter and declare the entire Church, from those who knew the apostles down to the present, incapable of understanding what it meant in its own Scriptures concerning so fundamental an issue. To deny that the deity of Christ was part of the apostolic preaching is to say that the apostles managed to leave a wildly blasphemous impression upon their fledgling churches when really they had no such intention. It is to assert that everywhere-north, south, east, and west, from Palestine to Asia to Greece to Rome to Spain to Africa to India to Gaul-the apostles managed to fix in the minds of every one of their churches something they had not meant: that the mere creature called Jesus is truly God. Quite a little mix-up indeed! If only the Twelve hadn't mumbled so, their disciples would not have gotten so confused about such an elementary thing as the distinction between Creator and creature! Is it even remotely likely that the entire early Church misunderstood the apostles that badly? Is it not obvious that the churches preserved the plain apostolic meaning of the Scriptures by carrying in their bosom not only the text of Scripture, but the clear memory of the the apostles intended these texts to be understood? Was it not obvious that this living memory was, in fact, essential to correctly reading Scripture? But in seeing this, I couldn't help seeing something else: My Evangelical radio show host (like my Evangelical friends and I) was saying that a Tradition of Trinitarian Interpretation living in the church was just as essential and revealed as the Scripture being interpreted. When we spoke of the absolute union of the Father and the Son, we Evangelicals were in fact resting serenely, not on the Bible alone, but on the interpretative tradition of the Church, just as we rested serenely on its Tradition of the Sanctity of Human Life and its Tradition of Monogamy. This meant that whatever we Evangelicals about tradition being "useful but not essential" to Christian revelation, we exactly as though we believed Trinitarian tradition—a tradition both in union with and yet distinct from the Scripture it interprets—is the other leg upon which the revelation of Christ's deity stands. It was then a plain mistake to think we Evangelicals spoke forth only what Scripture spoke, kept silent where Scripture was silent, and never bound the conscience of the believer on those questions in which Scripture permits different interpretations. On the contrary, we lived (and had to live) by tradition almost as deeply as Catholics. For us, as for Rome, tradition was the lens that focused the light of Scripture. For us, as for Rome, that tradition was not a pair of "useful but not necessary" disposable glasses; it was the lens of our living eye and the heart of vision. It was so much a part of us that we were oblivious to it. I realized we Evangelicals had been so focused on the light of Scripture that we had forgotten the lens through which we looked. http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/EVANTREA.htm

What a convoluted piece of strawmanship.

Mystery, Babylon the great is trying to plug the holes in it's catechism.

The scholarship is interesting and the texts compelling.

However, this would have been better served up as an answer on a thread bashing Catholics.

It is not good that Catholics should start fights like this.

We are, all of us, beset by the Devil. And the world is plunging headlong into darkness and the greatest danger in world history, with the proliferation of nuclear fire. Within the West, in Canada a Catholic councilman has been fined and forced to apologize for expressing his opposition to gay parades, and in England, the Catholic Church is about to be forced by law to provide gay adoptions. In California, Catholic Charities has been forced by law to provide birth control services as part of its medical plan.

And all of this is against the backdrop of 40 million dead babies in the US over the past 30 years, and other 150 million+ worldwide, the worst continuous slaughter of completely innocent human beings in all of history.

Now, in this crucible in which we find ourselves, in America, who are the most stalwart defenders of the good against the Devil? Catholics, yes (but see Pelosi and Kennedy), but also Baptists, especially, and Evangelicals.

And in China, where Christianity is expanding in spite of criminalization and martyrdom, who is driving most of the expansion and gaining the crown of martydom? Not, for the most part Catholic or Orthodox missionaries. No. It is Pentecostals. Jesus said many things, but one thing he did say is "You will know them by their fruits."

The fruits of our Protestant brethren in China have been exceedingly rich, and the most stalwartly anti-abortion regions of the United States are not the "blue states", which are almost invariably predominantly Catholic, but the Baptist "red states".

Pope after Pope, for 40 years, has called Christians to unity, and as Catholics we bear a special burden to foster unity with Christians and to try to heal the wounds to the Body of Christ that disunity of His Church have wrought. Were the Protestants wrong, doctrinally, in the Reformation? Yes. But the Catholics were wrong, desperately wrong, in matters of Church discipline. Corruption, sleaze and murder emanating from the See of Peter itself raised such a stench of evil that the Catholic Church itself, too, was responsible for the Reformation, just as the cover-up of gay priestly abuse of minors is today driving many Catholics out the doors in legitimate and righteous moral disgust at the sleaze and baseness of some Catholic clergy.

No.
We as Catholics cannot pick fights with Protestants.
Not any more.
We have been called to do something different.
We have to call them back to arms, under the Cross, all of us, against the Devil whose forces are surging around us all as never before. We cannot demand an admission of doctrinal error in them until we well and truly admit and atone for our own beastly sins and errors of a disciplinary nature.
There is a Devil to fight, and we are living in the direst and most murderous time ever: the slaughter of innocents continues unabated, and is threatening to make inroads into Latin American now as well.
We have to patiently bear the insults, and bear with good humor and humility the rebukes against us and our Church for the real sins, egregious and bloody, of our forebears, and the real sins, sleazy and pernicious of sexual predators in the present. Our doctrine may be pure, but we are known by our fruit, not just our doctrine. Jesus said you will know them by their fruit, and our fruit, though often very good, has also been very bad.

We cannot simply stand up and offer to refight the Reformation, because we were WRONG about much during the Reformation. So were the Protestants. That Christians mass murdered Christians, both wrong, was the work of the Devil carried out in the name of Jesus.

Simply hitting the reset button and going back to the doctrinal fights will not do. As Catholics, we ARE the One True Church. Our job is to LEAD. Not taunt. That means NOT launching doctrinal missiles at the Protestants. They are never persuaded in this way. But they do stand up and fate, and we renew all of the hatred and stupidity of the ages, both sides.

As Catholics, called to ecumenism, we cannot permit ourselves to do that anymore. When the truth of our doctrine is attacked then, and only then, is it appropriate to respond with the sort of detailed missive as you did, as a CORRECTIVE, and with humble and careful language, NOT with language calculated to give offense and insult.

I applaud your efforts at Biblical exegesis. They were effective at presenting much of the doctrinal truth. Unfortunately, the scholarship was put to a bad use: picking a fight with our Protestant brethren, fellow Christians, soldiers in Christ. That is wrong. We must not do that anymore. Our doom is upon us all; the Devil is thronging all around. Us shooting into a circle and embittering each other at each other with all of the old issues of doctrine is not a fight we should be having unless we MUST, and not a fight we should be INITIATING at all.

I like the scholarship. It is very good.
I dislike the purpose to which it was put: starting a fight.

Ask yourself this: to whom does the glory of God chiefly go in the sweeping conversion of Korea and China?
Not to the Catholic Church.
Fighting Protestant words here is easy.
Fighting Communists there, as individual Protestants are doing in record numbers, that is very hard.
It is to those ends our efforts should be bent, not to dividing the body of Christ further.