Posted on 06/22/2013 1:01:24 PM PDT by NYer
"If a teaching isn’t explicit in the Bible, then we don’t accept it as doctrine!" That belief, commonly known as sola scriptura, was a central component of all I believed as a Protestant. This bedrock Protestant teaching claims that Scripture alone is the sole rule of faith and morals for Christians. Diving deeper into its meaning to defend my Protestant faith against Catholicism about twenty years ago, I found that there was no uniform understanding of this teaching among Protestant pastors and no book I could read to get a better understanding of it.
What role does tradition play? How explicit does something have to be in Scripture before it can be called doctrine? Does Scripture tell us what is absolutely essential for us to believe as Christians? How can we determine the canon using sola scriptura? All these questions and more pointed to the central question: Where is sola scriptura itself taught in the Bible?
Most Protestants find it in 2 Timothy 3:16-17:
All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
The fact is that this passage (or any other) does not even hint at Scripture being the sole rule of faith. It says that Scripture is inspired and necessary—a rule of faith—but in no way does it teach that Scripture alone is all one needs to determine the truth about faith and morals in the Church. My attempt to defend this bedrock teaching of Protestantism led me to conclude that sola scriptura is unreasonable, unbiblical, and unworkable.
Unreasonable
The Protestant appeal to the sole authority of Scripture to defend sola scriptura is a textbook example of circular reasoning, and it betrays an essential problem with the doctrine itself: It is contrary to reason. One cannot prove the inspiration of Scripture, or any text, from the text itself. The Book of Mormon, the Hindu Vedas, the Qur’an, the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, and other books all claim inspiration, but this does not make them inspired.
Closely related to this is the question of the canon. After all, if the Bible is the sole rule of faith, we first have to know which books are included in the Bible. Many books were believed to be inspired and, therefore, canonical in the early Church. How do we separate the wheat from the chaff? The Protestant must use the principle of sola scriptura to answer the question of the canon. It simply cannot be done.
I recall a conversation with a Protestant friend about this. He said, "The Holy Spirit guided the early Christians and helped them gather the canon of Scripture and declare it to be the inspired word of God, as Jesus said in John 16:13." I thought that that answer was more Catholic than Protestant. John 16:13 does tells us that the Spirit will lead the apostles, and by extension, the Church, into truth. But it has nothing to say about sola scriptura or the nature or number of books in the canon.
The Bible does not and cannot answer questions about its own inspiration or about the canon. Historically, the Church used sacred Tradition outside of Scripture as its criterion for the canon. The early Christians, many of whom disagreed on the issue, needed the Church in council to give an authoritative decree to settle the question. Those are the historical facts.
To put my friend’s argument into perspective, imagine a Catholic making a similar claim to demonstrate that Mary is the Mother of God. "We believe the Holy Spirit guides us into all truth and guided the early Christians to declare this truth." Would the Protestant respond with a hearty amen? No. He would be more likely to say, "Show me where it says in the Bible that Mary is the Mother of God!" The same question, of course, applies to Protestants concerning the canon: "Show me where the canon of Scripture is in the Bible!"
Will the Circle Be Unbroken?
The issues of the inspiration and canon of Scripture are the Achilles heel of any intellectual defense of sola scriptura. So weak are the biblical attempts at an answer that often the Protestant response just turns the argument against the Catholic. "How do you know Scripture is inspired? Your reasoning is just as circular. You say the Church is infallible because the inspired Scripture says so, then you say that Scripture is inspired and infallible because the Church says so!"
Not only is this not an answer, but it also misrepresents the Catholic position. Catholics do not claim the Church is infallible because Scripture says so. The Church is infallible because Jesus said so. The Church was established and functioning as the infallible spokesperson for the Lord decades before the New Testament was written.
It is true that we know Scripture to be inspired and canonical only because the Church has told us so. That is historical fact. Catholics reason to inspiration of Scripture through demonstrating first its historical reliability and the truth about Christ and the Church. Then we can reasonably rely upon the testimony of the Church to tell us the text is inspired. This is not circular reasoning. The New Testament is the most accurate and verifiable historical document in all of ancient history, but one cannot deduce from this that it is inspired.
The testimony of the New Testament is backed up by hundreds of works by early Christian and non-Christian writers. We have the first-century testimonies of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the Church Fathers—some of whom were contemporaries of the apostles—and highly reliable non-Christian writers such as Suetonius, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Josephus, and others, all testifying to the veracity of the Christ-event in various ways. It is on the basis of the historical evidence that we can say it is a historical fact that Jesus lived, died and was reported to be resurrected from the dead by over 500 eyewitnesses (1 Cor. 15:6). Many of these eyewitnesses went to their deaths testifying to the truth of the Resurrection of Christ (Luke 1:1-4; John 21:18-19; 24-25; Acts 1:1-11).
The historical record also tells us that Jesus Christ established a Church—not a book—to be the foundation of the Christian faith (Matt. 16:15-18; 18:15-18; cf. Eph. 2:20; 3:10, 20-21; 4:11-15; 1 Tim. 3:15; Heb. 13:7, 17). Christ said of his Church, "He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me" (Luke 10:16).
The many books that comprise the Bible never tell us that they are inspired, nor do they answer many other essential questions about their canonicity. Who can or cannot be the human authors of the texts? Who wrote them in the first place? But Scripture does tell us—remarkably clearly—that Jesus established a kingdom on earth, the Church, with a hierarchy and the authority to speak for him (Luke 20:29-32; Matt. 10:40; 28:18-20). If we did not have Scripture, we would still have the Church. But without the Church, there would be no New Testament Scripture. It was members of this kingdom, the Church, who wrote Scripture, preserved its many texts, and eventually canonized it. Scripture alone could not do any of this.
The bottom line is that the truth of the Catholic Church is rooted in history. Jesus Christ is a historical person who gave his authority to his Church to teach, govern, and sanctify in his place. His Church gave us the New Testament with the authority of Christ. Reason rejects sola scriptura as a self-refuting principle.
Unbiblical
There are four problems with the defense of sola scriptura using 2 Timothy 3:16. First, it does not speak of the New Testament at all. The two verses preceding 2 Timothy 3:16 say:
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
This passage does not refer to the New Testament. In fact, none of the New Testament books had been written when Timothy was a child. Claiming this verse as authentication for a book that had not been written yet goes far beyond what the text claims.
Second, 2 Timothy 3:16 does not claim Scripture to be the sole rule of faith for Christians. As a Protestant, I was guilty of seeing more than one sola in Scripture that simply did not exist. The Bible teaches justification by faith, and we Catholics believe it, but we do not believe in justification by faith alone, as Protestants do. Among other reasons, the Bible says that we are "justified by works and not by faith alone" (Jas. 2:24). There is no sola in 2 Timothy 3:16 either. The passage never claims Scripture to be the sole rule of faith.
James 1:4 illustrates the problem:
And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
If we apply the same principle of exegesis to this text that the Protestant does to 2 Timothy 3:16, then we would have to say that all we need is patience (steadfastness) to be perfected. We don’t need faith, hope, charity, the Church, baptism, or anything else.
Of course, any Christian knows this would be absurd. But James’s emphasis on the central importance of patience is even stronger than Paul’s emphasis on Scripture. The key is to see that there is not a sola in either text. Sola patientia would be just as wrong as sola scriptura.
Third, the Bible teaches that oral Tradition is equal to Scripture. It is silent when it comes to sola scriptura, but it is remarkably clear in teaching that oral Tradition is just as much the word of God as Scripture is. In what most scholars believe was the first book written in the New Testament, Paul said:
And we also thank God . . . that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God. (1 Thess. 2:13)
According to Paul, the spoken words of the apostles were the word of God. In fact, when Paul wrote his second letter to the Thessalonians, he urged Christians there to receive the oral and written Traditions as equally authoritative. This would be expected because both are the word of God:
So, then, brethren stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter. (2 Thess. 2:15)
Finally, 2 Timothy 3:16 is specifically addressed to members of the hierarchy. It is a pastoral epistle, written to a young bishop Paul had ordained. R. J. Foster points out that the phrase "man of God" refers to ministers, not to the average layperson (A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1149). This title was used in the Old Testament to describe those consecrated to the service of God (Deut. 33:1; 1 Sam. 2:27; 1 Kgs. 12:22). Not only does the text not say Scripture sola, but Paul’s exhortation for Timothy to study the word of God is in the context of an exhortation to "preach the word" as a minister of Christ. To use this text to claim that sola scriptura is being taught to the average layperson is—to borrow a phrase from Paul—going far "beyond what is written" (1 Cor. 4:6).
Unworkable
The silence of Scripture on sola scriptura is deafening. But when it comes to the true authority of Scripture and Tradition and to the teaching and governing authority of the Church, the text is clear:
If your brother sins against you go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. . . . But if he does not listen, take one or two others with you. . . . If he refuses to listen . . . tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. (Matt. 18:15-17)
According to Scripture, the Church is the final court of appeal for the people of God in matters of faith, morals, and discipline. It is telling that since the Reformation of almost 500 years ago—a Reformation claiming sola scriptura as its formal principle—there are now over 33,000 Protestant denominations. In John 10:16, Jesus prophesied there would be "one flock, one shepherd." Reliance on sola scriptura has not been effective in establishing doctrine or authority.
23. Hold fast these traditions undefiled and, keep yourselves free from offense. Sever not yourselves from the Communion; deprive not yourselves, through the pollution of sins, of these Holy and Spiritual Mysteries. And the God of peace sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit, and soul, and body be preserved entire without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Thessalonians 5:23:— To whom be glory and honour and might, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and world without end. Amen.
Lecture 23 paragraph 23
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310123.htm
See post #119
Well, we agree! Some things you can try to prove, but ultimately the other person is either going to accept it or not. I feel the same way as you about proving that the words of the Bible were inspired by God. Likewise, He also gave teaching authority to the Catholic Church to select the inspired books of the canon and to teach Sacred Tradition. Both are equally important. You either accept it or not.
I also will say a few words here and there in these sorts of threads as a Jewish convert to the one true Faith, the Catholic Faith. People may not listen and can think I’m wrong, but I’m still going to scatter the seeds and then I’ll dust off my sandals. I certainly will not get drawn into the so-called “debates” that is more about putting the other person down.
They’re not really difficult questions.
They’re incriminating.
You wrote:
“Of course it can. The church is people. Take away the people and you have no church.”
The Church is not just people. The Church is the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ.
“What the people do is what the church does, unless the people are not the church.”
No. What people do is what people do. I, for instance, might commit a crime, but no one should blame America for the crime I commit even though someone could say “America is people”.
“If the people go wrong, the church has gone wrong.”
Nope. The Church existed before their generation and will exist after their generation.
“You can’t have a right church with wrong people in it.”
Sure you can. If you can’t then every Church is wrong and all will be forever because all people are wrong in some way at most likely all times.
“Besides, Jesus will not tolerate it.”
Wrong again. Jesus has not destroyed all of us. Clearly He is much more tolerant than you give Him credit for.
“He didn’t in Revelation when He chastised the seven churches there and how many of them are in existence today?”
And yet there are literally millions more churches (or sects) like those in Revelation which He has not destroyed.
Do you even think about what you post before you post it?
They aren’t difficult questions and they have been answered. Sacred Tradition is found in the teachings of the Catholic Church. You just choose not to believe it. Just like some folks choose not to believe that the Bible was inspired by God.
And just where does the person get the information in the first place.
I think what people fail to see is the difference between being familiar with a written work to recognize errors in implementation of it, and correcting a written work based on oral teaching.
Since the written work is WRITTEN down, it can be referred back to for veracity. That cannot happen with oral tradition unless that oral tradition is immediately and faithfully recorded. At which point, it becomes a written work that can be checked for fidelity.
oooops.
Not only is this not an answer, but it also misrepresents the Catholic position. Catholics do not claim the Church is infallible because Scripture says so. The Church is infallible because Jesus said so. The Church was established and functioning as the infallible spokesperson for the Lord decades before the New Testament was written.
7
Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
8
But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed
Do you have an evidence that this is so and that this technique was what was used on or with Scripture?
And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
If we apply the same principle of exegesis to this text that the Protestant does to 2 Timothy 3:16, then we would have to say that all we need is patience (steadfastness) to be perfected. We don’t need faith, hope, charity, the Church, baptism, or anything else.
There has been no response to this part of Tim Staples' argument. He took one verse out of the Bible and by doing so it appears that all we really need is patience, not Scripture to make us "complete" and "perfect". Perhaps we don't even need Scripture!
you wrote:
“Except that there’s no such thing as purgatory.”
Yes, there is.
“Not one verse of Scripture supports the doctrine.”
Actually a number of verses do.
“On the contrary, Paul says that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord and in Hebrews, that it is appointed to men once to die and after this the judgment.”
One of the problems Protestants have when discussing Christian doctrines is their own ignorance about them. I can’t tell you how many times Protestants have attacked doctrines they clearly do not understand. You’re doing it right now.
1) St. Paul was right for what he was speaking about to whom he was speaking. That in no way negates the reality of Purgatory. Go back and read verse 1 of that passage and you’ll see St. Paul is talking about the glorified body we will receive after death (”For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”). He’s not denying Purgatory. He’s affirming the Resurrection.
2) The idea “that it is appointed to men once to die and after this the judgment” also in no way negates the reality of Purgatory. We are judged and, if Purgatory is necessary, we undergo it.
“I suppose that when many Catholics are suffering torment in hell, they’ll need to console themselves that it is only temporary even though it’s not.”
I suppose that when many Protestants are suffering torment in hell they’ll fail to console themselves with the claim that they didn’t really know they were attacking Christ’s Church.
Such as?
Hades is not hell.
Hades is a waiting place for the dead that people who lived before Christ waited. There is no Scriptural reference to being purged from sin. Yes, Jesus did descend to Hades. It says so and says that He was not abandoned to it.
In the account of the rich man and Lazarus, Abraham says this.....
Luke 16:22-26 22 The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried, 23 and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. 24 And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’
There's no getting out of whereever you end up on Hades. You can't cross over.
Hades has yet to be thrown into the lake of fire.
As far as suffering to cleanse from sin, that is completely unscriptural. It's only the shedding of blood that cleanses from sin.
Hebrews 9:22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
And once sin has been forgiven, it's gone. There's nothing left to pay for.
Hebrews 9-11-14 11 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) 12 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
Hebrews 9:24-28 24 For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, 26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
Hebrews 10:11-1811 And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. 14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
15 And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, 16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,” 17 then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” 18 Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.
No more offering. Suffering can't do it because it isn't adequate.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The wages we get for our sin is death.
Galatians 2:20-21 20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
If righteousness could be gained by ANYTHING but Christ, Christ died for nothing. But it can't, therefore the death of Christ was necessary.
Sounds like people figure they can sin and just pay it off in purgatory. Since they know they're saved anyway, they can go ahead and sin with impunity. Hey, they're saved anyway, right? It just takes them a little longer to get there.
And Christians are condemned for a cavalier attitude toward sin because they believe that once saved, always saved? The hypocrisy abounds.
It's not oral tradition. Matter of fact, it's not tradition at all. It's direct divine revelation that Paul wrote down.
How about answering the first part of the question?
I notice that every time the question is asked of what those teachings are, NOBODY ever answers it.
As far as the claim that God promised to keep the oral teaching from corruption, that is not what those verses say.
John 14:25-2625 “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
That verse can only apply to those disciples to whom Jesus was directly speaking as nobody else heard the words that He said to them. John 16:13 is no promise of protecting oral tradition from corruption either.
There is no way to protect oral tradition from corruption and the attempt to claim it by the Catholic church falls flat because it is not even consisten4t with itself throughout its own history, much less with Scripture.
trebb asked some very relevant and interesting questions. To refresh your memory.....I guess a better question would be, "What does the Bible lack that would keep an interested person from reading, understanding, and appreciating the Good News of the Gospels. What does it lack to keep a person from making the decision to accept Christ as the Savior?"
So just where is Scripture lacking and why and why would anyone even think so?
There are plenty of references on the net to RABBINIC JUDAISM, and if you read my post far enough, that’s how the Chinese languages are maintained ~ with an oral tradition supplemented with text in a totally different language (the character language). Over 1 billion people do it that way.
Even the words of Jesus as written down.........
I would hope the Pope uses the Bible to guide his counsel to everybody. Makes sense. The Reverend Jim Jones, one of those people I happened to know on my way up ~ (bwahahahaha) ~ misused the Bible.
You may discover (soon) that you need to bracket your paragraph with (/s)
BTW, the words of Isiah about ‘.... mighty, counselor.....’ popped up today on a Messianic jewish show I encountered riffling the channels ~ and I remembered what was probably my only original thought on a Triune God with His feet planted across the entirity of Space and Time ~ that He heard Handel’s Messiah, loved the music, was mightily impressed, and went back and made sure the prophets were properly inspired, as were KIng Jame’s translators!
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