In this episode, Dr. Karlo Broussard chats with Adrian Lawson from Sips with Serra about where Catholics go wrong when critiquing Sola Scriptura.
TRANSCRIPT:
Adrian:
Everybody, thank you for clicking on this video and watching this conversation that Dr. Karlo Broussard and I are about to have. This is going to be an excellent conversation that is going to help Catholics avoid certain missteps that we sometimes fall into when arguing against solo scriptura. So without further ado, I want to introduce Dr. Carla Broussard. Thank you so much for joining us here,
Karlo:
Adrian. Thanks for having me, man. This is a blast. I am honored to finally be on with Sips with Sarah. Man,
Adrian:
I’m honored. I’m honored. It’s great. I’ve actually been reading your books and I’ve been making videos about them without your knowledge.
Oh wow. I
Hope that that’s okay. Thank you. As of recording, it’s not out yet for the public. It’s only out for people over at Patreon, but I did make a video about, it was titled This Video Will Convince You of Prayer to the Saints, and I referred to your book heavily. I did the same thing with purgatory referring to Purgatories for real, such good books. And I’m so happy to hear that you have a YouTube channel now because if your YouTube channel is anything like your books, it’s going to be excellent. Thank you, man. And it has been from what I’ve seen,
Karlo:
Yeah, so far. So as we’re recording this right now, episode two from my Dr. Carlo YouTube channel Dropped yesterday was today. Today’s, yeah, last night. And it’s entitled, thou Shalt Not Kill the Innocent Question Mark. Intuition isn’t sufficient anymore. So today as we’re recording remembering Roe v. Wade, the anniversary of Roe V. Wade, praise God that was overturned, but we still fight the fight against abortion. And so I released that episode to provide a philosophical defense as to why it’s always immoral to kill an innocent human being, which most pro-lifers do not engage in. Very seldom do they even attempt a defense of that principle because they assume everybody just agrees with it. And even when they do try to defend it, it’s mostly an appeal to intuition, which as we know in current cultural circumstances, intuitions are waning intuitions that were once held are waning.
And so I provide a rational philosophical defense of why it’s always wrong to kill an innocent human being. So I’m super excited about the new YouTube channel. So I would encourage your viewers, if I may, to direct them to Dr. Carlo YouTube channel to subscribe, hit that bell notification, flood the comments, do whatever they got to do to beat the algorithm or whatever so we can get some traffic there. I don’t know how all this stuff works, man. I feel like a dinosaur trying to enter into this YouTube world, man. I’m only 44 years old, but yet I still feel like a dinosaur getting into these waters.
Adrian:
No, no. I mean, your videos are great. The format is great. You’re going to crush it, so thank, it’s a matter of getting everybody over there and getting the word out. Awesome. Absolutely. Well, thanks again for coming on everybody. All of those links are in the description, by the way. So go and check out Dr. Carla Broussard’s YouTube that’s going to be linked in the description. We’ll link to your Patreon and I have linked to your books in other videos, but everybody go to catholic.com or shop.catholic.com and check out Dr. Carla Broussard’s books as well, because I’ve only read two of them. But those two have been absolutely amazing, and I’m sure the rest are just as good. So let’s get into topic. Yeah,
Karlo:
My latest book was Baptism Now Saves You How Water in Spirit Give Eternal Life. So that’s the latest one that came out, I guess a few months ago, about three or four months ago.
Adrian:
Nice. Did you see the Catechumens music video? Baptism saves?
Karlo:
Yes. He rocked it. Dude, I got to say, look, I am very hesitant when Catholic people try to rap. Okay. Because normally they fall short of trying to do that. But I must say Braden nailed it, man. He did a really good job. Now I will say it’s like white boy rap white boy all the way, but it’s good white boy rap, right? Okay. So I’ll give her props for that, man.
Adrian:
Yeah, that
Karlo:
Came out awesome. It’s not like Cray and Trip Lee and all those guys. Those guys are just at the top of their game, but it’s awesome. He did a good job. Yeah,
Adrian:
Yeah, he crushed it. Awesome. All. So the topic today that we’re talking about is Catholic missteps against Sodo Scriptura. So walk us through, these are conversations we have online all the time, and oftentimes we’re kind of shooting from the hip. Maybe we were just kind of responding on Twitter or making quick YouTube videos and things like that. But what are some of the common issues or common pitfalls that you see Catholics falling into when trying to argue against solos scriptura?
Karlo:
Yeah, great question. So there’s a few issues there. So I guess we’ll just take one at a time and walk through ’em. One that I’ve seen, a misstep that I’ve seen made commonly is an appeal to apostolic traditions that are beyond scripture. So for example, you’ll see in debates a Catholic apologists try to refute solo scripture by showing from the New Testament that there were apostolic traditions that are not found or confined within the apostolic writing. So for example, in Mark chapter 13, verse 14, Jesus talks about when you see the Desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, but yet were not told what that desolation is within the New Testament. And so some Catholic apologists will argue, you see, there is divine revelation that is not restricted to sacred writing to the sacred writings, two Thessalonians two, five through six, that’s when Paul talks about the man of perdition and he tells the Thessalonians how they know what is restraining him.
But yet St. Paul never tells us in his writings what that restraining is. So yet again, you have a piece of divine revelation that’s beyond sacred scripture, not confined to sacred scripture. Second John two is a common one that Catholics appealed to where John says, Jesus did so much stuff, there’s not enough paper and ink in the world to contain the things that he said and did. So that would be divine revelation, but yet that is not in found within scripture, and many Catholic apologists think that that is a defeater of so scriptura, but actually a Protestant can fairly counter and say, well, sour, at least the principle of so scriptura does not entail that everything God revealed is contained within scriptures, but only that which God wied for us to believes is contained in the scriptures. The implication being that some things have been divinely revealed that aren’t in the scriptures, but God did not will for those apostolic teachings to be preserved after the apostles.
Now, it is true that if someone defines solo scripture as scripture alone containing everything that God has revealed, then these sorts of scripture passages would serve as defeaters of that idea. But many contemporary Protestant apologists and advocates of soul s scriptura will not ascent to that understanding of so scripture that scripture alone contains everything God has objectively speaking, revealed rather as many will assert and argue only those things that God intended for us to believe or contained within sacred scripture alone. And so I think that’s extremely important. I’ve seen this Adrian two times so far in watching some debates, and I’m not going to name the Catholic apologists here, but two debates I’ve seen on soldier scriptura between Catholic apologists and a Protestant, both Catholic apologists ran this line of argumentation to try and defeat solis scriptura, and both times the Protestant apologists countered fairly by rebutting that line of argumentation.
Adrian:
Interesting. Yeah, I mean, I have to be honest, I have made this argument myself and I’ve,
Karlo:
Amen. Listen, same here, dude.
Adrian:
I’ll call myself
Karlo:
Out. Yeah, I used to appeal to these passages as well, but then came to realize that I was shooting the arrows at the wrong target, right? So like I said, remember we have to identify the correct target for which the arrows are useful. So if somebody saying everything God revealed is contained in scriptures, well then these passages would work. But that’s really not the common target of solos script tour that contemporary Protestant apologists are holding up for us to shoot arrows at. And so I think that’s important to be aware of so that we don’t misstep in our conversation there.
Adrian:
Yeah, that’s true, and I’ve made appeals to some of these same verses I’ve made appeals to the Old Testament. I’ve even heard Orthodox Jews or rabbinic Jews make arguments saying that in the Old Testament it says that we are to circumcised in the Abraham and Covenant where to circumcised, but it doesn’t describe what circumcision is. So you need some sort of an external authority in order to kind of detail how some of these things are carried out that we’re commanded to do in scripture. I guess that’s still not hitting the target that you’re describing though, because that would be more of a pragmatic thing rather than saying that those explanations are on the same par as scripture as far as authority. So now that we’ve kind of got an idea of what the problem is here, so how does one who wants to present some argument along these lines, is there a better way to do that or should we just abandon this
Karlo:
Altogether? Well, for these particular text right here, I do think they have apal value for one particular claim that some Protestants do make, some Protestant apologists do make you find it In some of the literature, if my memory serves me correctly, the late Norman Geisler and Ralph McKenzie make this argument or claim in their book, evangelicals and Roman Catholics Agreements and Differences or Roman Catholics and Evangelicals agreements and differences, Protestant apologist, Ron Rhodes, if my memory serves me correctly, makes the claim I’m about to propose in his book Reasoning with Catholics from the scriptures. And the claim is that all of the apostolic oral teaching is identical to sacred scripture. So that’s their rebuttal to our appeal to say Second Thessalonians two 15, right? When Paul says, hold fast to the traditions that you have received by word of mouth or by written epistle and our Protestant friends, counter to that is that, well, we concede that what the apostles taught was divine revelation, it was infallible, it was binding, maybe not inspired in speech but inspired in content.
We would agree with all of that, but they will argue that all that which they taught orally is identical to what they have in the scriptures. If that’s the target, if that’s what we are engaging, then these particular texts would come into play and defeat that claim because the text that I just referenced proved beyond a doubt that not everything the apostles taught, well, one of ’em was referring to Jesus. So Jesus or the take your pick, not everything that they taught is identical to what is in the writings that appeal to Second Thessalonians two, five through six would be a key text to show that not everything Paul taught is identical to what’s in his writings. If that’s the target, then these arrows are proportionate to that target and they work. But we have to be ready for the Protestant apologists to counter and pivot and shift the target to say, well, not everything revealed is going to be contained, but only that which God wills for us to believe and is binding for our salvation is contained in scriptures.
And then there we going to have to, as I think about it right now, Adrian, I don’t think we would give up these passages entirely. I do think they can serve some apologetic value to at least establish a precedent of this understanding of divine revelation not being confined to the scriptures alone, but being beyond the scriptures. Then the question becomes, do we have any evidence or lines of argumentation to argue for those apostolic teachings outside of scripture being preserved in the historical record in the succession of the bishop succeeding the apostles? And that’s a fair question
Adrian:
From
Karlo:
Both the Catholic side and the Protestant side. We can legitimately ask that question whether they are preserved, and I think it’s fair for our Protestant friends to ask that and for us as Catholics to provide some evidence that some traditions, maybe not all, but some would be preserved. Because Adrian, as I think about it, I’m glad you brought this up because some Protestants will counter our appeal to two Thessalonians two, five through six, where Paul talks about what’s restraining the son of perdition or the man of lawlessness and some Protestants fairly counter. Well, you Catholics don’t even know what that is, so why you’re appealing to it, right?
Granted, we can answer that question. There are some purposes for which we can appeal to that text, but we have to be very careful as to which purpose we’re trying to achieve. But it is true that we don’t know what that is. That particular part of divine revelation was not preserved, but just because a or some aspects of divine revelation in the apostolic teaching beyond scripture was not preserved, that doesn’t mean no oral apostolic preaching beyond the scriptures was preserved. There might be some. And so then the question becomes what are some of those apostolic traditions preserved? And then of course we go down the list, no more public revelation, no more apostles, no more inspired scripture, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Adrian:
Yeah, no, yeah, thank you for laying that out because that’s really important for us to get into those nuances, right? Yeah. We have these conversations online and it’s oftentimes just throwing verses at each other or throwing arguments that we’ve heard at each other and it’s really not helpful. But once you actually find a Protestant, or if a Protestant finds a Catholic who’s willing to have a serious conversation about these things, that’s where we kind of tease out the finer details of what these verses are actually telling us and what these arguments actually are.
Karlo:
And also too, we want to be respectful of our Protestant friends, just like we would expect for them to understand and grasp what we are presenting and what we’re saying so that their arguments are proportionate to what we’re saying and not attacking strawman a straw man argument. So too, we want to be respectful of our Protestant friends to make sure we have the proper target in mind so that we are not attacking Straumann.
Adrian:
Yeah, exactly. Okay, cool. So we have that first misstep, these verses that are often used as defeaters for solos script tour, but we see that oftentimes they’re really only defeaters for a certain type of solos script tour or a certain claim that might be within solos script tour. What is another kind of misstep that you often see Catholics fall into in this conversation?
Karlo:
Yeah, so the next one is Adrian, yet another one that I’ve fallen into as well. And that is the appeal to two Thessalonians chapter three verse six. So that’s the text where Paul says in the name of Jesus Christ, he invokes the very name of Christ. He doesn’t offer it as his own opinion or counsel, but invokes the name of Christ and so therefore it’s binding. And he says, stay away from the brother who doesn’t walk into accord with the tradition received. And this is often a text that’s appealed to by Catholics to convey the idea that tradition is favorable, and that’s perhaps another misstep, and we’ll get to that in a moment. But in this text, St. Paul is revealing that this tradition, whatever it is, has just as much binding authority on Christians as sacred scripture because he invokes the very name of Christ.
So this is an apostolic tradition, whatever it is, a sacred tradition, not just a little T tradition, a big T tradition. Now, the misstep is appealing to this passage in thinking that it proves the Catholic point of sacred tradition and sacred, well, let me say this, it does prove the point of sacred tradition and sacred scripture, but we think it defeats solo scriptura, at least as our Protestant friend is conceiving it. But a Protestant can fairly counter and say, well, this quote unquote tradition that Paul is talking about in two Thessalonians three, six is put down in writing immediately following in verses seven through 13
When he talks about how you ought to imitate us. We were not idle when we were with you, right? And so the ethical, this is an ethical precept that makes up this sacred tradition, is the idea that as Christians, we ought not to be idle. And that’s what the brother was doing. He was being idle and wasn’t working for his key. And so Paul instructs stay away from the brother because he is not living in accord with the quote tradition, the ethical Christian teaching that you ought to work and not be idle. And Paul explains what that tradition is right then and there in the subsequent verses. And so some might, and so a Protestant can fairly counter and say, well, wait a minute, you’re trying to appeal to this passage to justify the belief that there are non-written apostolic oral traditions that make up sacred tradition, but this particular tradition is in writing. And so it would seem to count in favor of the Protestant who’s saying all of the oral apostolic traditions are identical to what’s in the sacred text.
And for this tradition, that is true. But remember what I said a while ago, just because a sacred tradition is found in the sacred text, that doesn’t mean there are no oral apostolic traditions beyond the sacred text. So that would be my first point. Now secondly, I do think, Adrian, that we don’t have to throw out two Thessalonians three, six entirely. I do think it can provide some apologetic value, and it’s this, it at least can provide evidence for the two infallible rule, paradigm, scripture and sacred tradition. That is what the apostles were teaching orally and it being binding in the name of Jesus Christ and what is found in sacred scripture. Now, this was the paradigm for the first century Christians, and that’s agreed upon by both Catholics and Protestants alike. But its apal value comes into play by providing us a ground or a backdrop against which we can counter Protestant arguments for.
So script tour, okay, so consider to keep in your mind for the first century Christians, when the apostles are teaching in their writing, in their mind they have this two infallible rule paradigm, oral apostolic preaching or teaching and sacred scripture, and that can shed light on how we can interpret certain texts. So consider for example, two Thessalonians three 16 through 17 classic text that’s appealed to try and justify solo scripture as understood as the sufficiency of scripture, like scripture is all we need to make a man complete or perfect for teaching and reproach, et cetera. Now with this twofold, infallible rule paradigm in mind for the first century Christians, we know that a like se Timothy three 16 through 17 cannot possibly justify so scriptura. Why? Because when Paul writes that passage to Timothy and se Timothy three, he is not referring to what would come in the future
Because the twofold infallible rule paradigm is what’s governing the Christians at that moment in the first century, solo scriptura is a model for post apostolic age Christianity, and even Protestant apologists concede that point. And when Paul is writing his instructions to Timothy in one Timothy three, he’s talking about what’s to govern his endeavor to be a complete and perfect man right then and there. And so if Paul has this twofold, infallible rule paradigm in mind of the oral apostolic preaching and sacred tradition as illustrated and excuse me, oral apostolic teaching and sacred scripture as illustrated in two Thessalonians chapter three, verse six, then we know when Paul gives his instructions to Timothy in two Timothy three, he cannot be referring to soul scripture. He’s referring to the twofold infallible rule paradigm because even in that text, Paul tells Timothy, consider what you have learned from the Old Testament scriptures and how they were instructive for salvation in Jesus Christ. Well, obviously the Old Testament didn’t explicitly teach about salvation in Jesus Christ that required the oral apostolic preaching. And so you can see how Second Thessalonians three, six sets a precedent of the twofold infallible rule paradigm, and that’s in the minds of the first century Christians as they’re writing the New Testament. And so that provides us reason why we can reject soul scriptura interpretations of passages like second Timothy 53 16 through 17.
Adrian:
Yeah, yeah, my understanding, or what I would say about Second Thessalonians three, six, and let me know if this is what you’re saying or if I’m off a little bit here, but is that up until that point, what Paul is writing about hasn’t been written down. And so this brother that he’s saying to stay away from is being in a sense excommunicated, you might say, because he’s not following a tradition that up to that point hadn’t been written down. But now Paul is writing down what that tradition was, but he was still accountable to that tradition even before it had been written down. Does that make sense?
Karlo:
Yeah. And a Protestant would concede that the tradition about how to live as a Christian was binding on him even before it was written down. So we don’t want to propose that as a target because our Protestant friends will agree with that.
They will argue simply that we don’t need to worry about this sacred tradition as Catholics articulate it because that oral apostolic preaching was put down in the written record. And so we have the written record of the apostolic teaching in it, thereby being binding on us. So we don’t have to worry about the oral apostolic preaching, but as I said, it does provide, to your point, this twofold infallible rule paradigm of the oral apostolic teaching being just as binding as what’s put down in the apostolic writings of the sacred text of the New Testament. And that twofold paradigm helps us interpret certain passages that might be appealed to far descriptor. Because when we take that twofold, infallible rule paradigm to those texts, we can see that for example, Paul in two Timothy three cannot possibly be thinking solo scripture because he’s thinking of the twofold infallible rule paradigm of sacred tradition and sacred scripture. And given that Paul, for example, in two Timothy three is not talking about the future of what is to come for governing a man to perfection, and he’s talking about what’s in the present, then it follows even further. He cannot be talking about solo scripture in that kind of passage,
Adrian:
Right? What would you say to a Protestant who says, okay, yes, there was a time when the oral tradition of the apostles had the same authority... Read more on Catholic.com