Joe Heschmeyer examines many of the Protestant arguments in favor of Sola Scriptura, how it changed over time and why “un-Biblical” doesn’t mean “anti-Biblical.”

Transcript:

Joe:

Welcome back to Shameless Popery. I’m Joe Heschmeyer and today I want to explore seven Bible verses that I’ve heard Protestants use to support the idea of sola script Torah or the Bible alone. And then why I don’t think any of them actually work if you read them in their proper biblical context. Now, before I go any further, I should really quickly clarify what do we mean by sous scriptura? Because I know different Protestants use this term in different ways, and particularly nowadays, many modern Protestants will try to narrow the idea down to something a little easier to defend. So for example, Dr. Gavin Orland says

CLIP:

Solos scriptura does not require that every doctrine must be explicitly taught in scripture. Even the strongest articulations of the related doctrine of the sufficiency of scripture allow for doctrines to be deduced from scripture by good and necessary consequence. Solos scriptura is often caricatured on those points and many others, but stated responsibly, it’s a very modest and reasonable claim. It simply means that popes counsels and other post apostolic organs of the church are fallible.

Joe:

Now, I don’t know who is caricaturing so script to say everything has to be explicit in scripture, but in any case, historically solo script meant much more than what Dr. Orland just defined as Jimmy Aiken points out in his article, the shifting definition of Solo scriptura, the doctrine historically meant not only that the church may air, but also, and this is the really important part of the positive case, that all doctrine must come from scripture alone or at least all necessary or saving doctrine. As Dr. Matthew Barrett of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary puts it. Solas script also means that scripture alone is our sufficient authority. This isn’t just, in other words, a related doctrine. As Dr. Orland says, it’s part of the doctrine of Solas script. Not only is the Bible our supreme authority, it is the authority that provides believers with all the truth that they need for salvation and following Christ and Barrett’s definition of soul script rather than orland’s is the one we find in traditional Protestant confessions of faith.

For instance, the Westminster Confession, which Orland cites to claims that the whole council of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory man’s salvation, faith, and life is either expressly set down in scripture or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from scripture that’s saying a lot more than the church can air. And while Orland is right, that it’s not just saying it has to be explicit, it does say it has to either be explicit expressly in scripture or necessarily deduced from which is much closer to the things he’s calling a caricature than his own position from at least the short bit that he kind of defines it. The definition clearly includes more than the church may air and Westminster’s not alone on this. Dr. Stephen Park quotes the early Lutheran reformer, Martin Kim is saying the Holy Spirit included in scripture the sum of the whole heavenly doctrine as much is necessary for the church and suffices for the faith by which believers obtain life eternal.

So everything you need for salvation is going to be in scripture necessarily. Modern Lutherans agree with this. For instance, Stephen Mueller argues that since the scriptures are our only reliable source of true knowledge about God, they form our theology and as a formal principle, the scriptures are the only source and norm of our theology. So Westminster, you’ve got the Calvinist side, you’ve got the Lutheran side, you also have the Baptist side, the 1689 Baptist Confession of faith claims. The holy scripture is the only sufficient. So notice it’s not just the only infallible, but the only sufficient certain and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience. Again, that’s much more than just saying the church can air because it goes on to say that because the seven disputed books that Catholics have in their Bible Protestants don’t which Protestants called the apocrypha because it says they’re not of divine inspiration. Therefore, it says they’re of no authority in the church of God nor to be any otherwise approved or made use of than other human rights. So that’s obviously saying much more, and it’s not just the historic Protestant confessions or modern theologians, it’s also the way ordinary Protestants tend to use the term sola s scriptura, which is saying again, much more than I think the church can air

CLIP:

Sola. S scriptura is the belief that scripture alone is the final authority in matters of Christian faith and practice, right? Christian belief, Christian faith, Christian practice. The scripture alone is the final authority in these matters. In addition to that, scripture alone is in errant that is is without error, it is infallible, and scripture is also sufficient to fully instruct us in every good work in relation to the Christian faith and life.

Joe:

That last claim is really important because it’s making the positive case that all doctrine, or again, at least all necessary doctrine, comes from scripture alone, either directly or by necessary deduction if you want to use Westminster’s language. So if that’s true, we should be asking, well, where is the doctrine and soul, the scriptura itself found? Because if it’s not biblical, if the doctrine is not found explicitly or by necessary deduction from scripture, then it would certainly appear to be a self-refuting doctrine. Now with that in mind, just a couple words I should stress. I’m not going to make in this video a positive case for what else you should believe besides scripture alone. That’s not what I’m trying to do. If an atheist says, I think the universe came from nothing, and you say That’s illogical, you don’t have the burden of proof to say the God of the Bible is true.

You can just say, Hey, the positive claim you’re making doesn’t work. Likewise, all I’m doing here is saying the positive case for Sola scriptura, at least on the biblical grounds that I’ve seen doesn’t work. Maybe Catholicism is still false, maybe orthodoxy is true, maybe orthodoxy is false. You can still make a number of arguments. I’m not doing any of that. I’m just saying I case for Sola Scriptura appears illogical and on a very weak or non-existent biblical foundation that leaves a lot of alternatives open, but we can at least close the door on solo script Protestantism. So that’s all I’m doing. Just like you might with an atheist, examine, could atheism logically be true and come out with no that doesn’t do all the work for Christianity, but it’s a good starting point. All I’m doing here is a similar kind of starting point. Could solo scriptura be true if we’re looking at the biblical evidence and I don’t know how we get to a yes on that.

So that’s all I’m doing. And then the final kind of preliminary remark, just to be clear, to make sure can we know where everybody is on this? There’s actually a lot Catholics, Orthodox Protestants, Coptic Christians have in common and in terms of how we view scripture, so four things we share. Number one, a belief that scripture is divinely inspired. Number two, belief that scripture is the word of God. Now, we would say scripture isn’t exclusively the word of God. We would also use the word of God to describe for instance Jesus himself, number three, but nevertheless, scripture is the word of God. Number three, scripture is written for our salvation. And number four, scripture derives this inspiration from God and not from the church. Sometimes people will respond to the case against solo script Torah with the mistaken assumption either that telling us, look at all these Bible verses saying Scripture is divinely inspired, is going to prove.

So script Torah, we actually agree on that. Or they’ll say, well, you think the Bible takes its authority from the church. It actually takes its authority from God. That is a conflation. The Catholic church, and I know the Orthodox would agree on this, the Catholic church explicitly teaches, no, we don’t think the Bible derives its authority from the church. It gets its authority from God. We know which books are in the Bible in part through the work of the church. That’s a totally separate kind of question. It doesn’t mean the authority comes from the church. Hopefully that’s clear. So that’s where we agree scripture is divinely inspired. It’s the word of God. It’s written for our salvation and its authority ultimately comes from God, certainly as inspiration comes from God, not from the church. Where do we disagree then? Well, we disagree on one or two questions.

Is scripture the only source of dogma or doctrine? Another way to word this would be to pose the question, could an unbiblical doctrine still be binding on Christians or is saying that a doctrine is unbiblical? Is that automatically going to disprove it? So we’ll get more into the nature of unbiblical doctrine a little bit, but I just wanted to make sure we understood where we were at the outset. So with that in mind, let’s finally jump into the meat. What can we say about these seven Bible verses? What are they and what is kind of the biblical weight to them? The first one we have to talk about is second Timothy chapter three verses 14 to 17. This is without a doubt the single most cited to passage in trying to defend Solo S script biblically, and I know Protestants like Dr. James White would say the same thing.

CLIP:

I would assume that most people when challenged on the subject of Solo s scriptura would default to the citation of the Apostle Paul. All scripture is the toss. It is profitable for doctrine and teaching re reproof and correction that the man of God may be sufficient is actually an appropriate translation. The term there thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Joe:

And likewise, when costi, he is arguing for the sufficiency of scripture. The idea that all doctrine has to come from scripture alone, this is precisely where he turns.

CLIP:

I want to walk you through tonight four facts about the Bible’s sufficiency straight from God’s word. Let’s read the text together and jump in two Timothy three 16 and 17. Paul writes, all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training and righteousness. Then he goes on to end it that the man of God may be adequate equipped for every good work.

Joe:

So depending on how you translate the first word of the sentence, two Timothy three 16 either begins by saying that all scripture or every scripture is inspired by God either way. So far so good Catholics and Protestants agree on this. Remember, this is one of those areas where we don’t disagree. Scripture is divinely inspired, but the fact that scripture is divinely inspired does not mean that it’s all we need that does not logically follow. So why do so many Protestants think that this passage proves so is script? Well, because the passage goes on to say that scripture is profitable, that the man of God may be complete or it’s maybe sufficient equipped for every good work, but complete is what everybody wants. So if you’re not reading carefully, you might think that Paul just said scripture is all you need to be complete or that scripture is all you need to be equipped for every good work, but that is neither grammatically nor theologically sound grammatically if I said it is necessary for you to catch Pikachu if you want your Pokemon set to be complete.

I know nothing about Pokemon. I have no idea why. This is the example that came to me. It would be ridiculous to say therefore Pikachu is all unique. Pikachu is necessary. Yes, Pikachu is sufficient. No, there were like 150 other Pokemon you needed. I think it’s a lot more than that. Now I’m a nerd, but this is not the kind of nerd. But in any case, what we can say from this is that even if Paul had said that scripture was necessary that the man of God be complete, those words would not mean that scripture by itself was sufficient, that the man of God be complete. That’s a very obvious logical fallacy, but in fact, St. Paul doesn’t even say that much. He says Scripture is profitable, not necessary for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training and righteousness. Now to be clear, St.

Paul clearly has a high view of scripture. He’s literally writing scripture as he’s talking about scripture, but he’s not claiming that illiterate people or people without the Bible can never have teaching reproof correction or training in righteousness. He’s not claiming that illiterate people can never be equipped to do any good works. He’s simply saying, having scripture is profitable for all of those things that you can be complete. Again, not saying it’s necessary for your completion, certainly not saying it’s sufficient for your completion, simply that it is profitable for your completion. That’s the first glaring red flag. If the number one place you’re going to support solo script, Torah doesn’t say the thing you want it to say about so script Torah, unless you conflate profitable with necessary with sufficient, that’s a big red flag. But it gets even worse when you look at the broader context.

If you go back a couple verses, St. Paul is very explicitly talking to St. Timothy about the scriptures with which he’s been acquainted from childhood. That is he is explicitly talking here about the Old Testament scripture. So does St. Paul believe that the Old Testament scriptures are all that a Christian needs? Of course not. He’s literally writing New Testament scripture. He wouldn’t be doing that if he thought the Old Testament was all we needed. He certainly believes the Old Testament is useful, that’s what profitable means, but he clearly doesn’t believe that the Old Testament scriptures are sufficient. I mean, imagine is St. Paul saying, Timothy, please ignore everything that I’ve told you. Just listen to the Old Testament scriptures alone. That’s all you’re going to need to be spiritually complete. Of course not. Could you reject the resurrection of Christ because it isn’t found explicitly in the Old Testament scriptures or biological deduction thereof and or ignore the Sermon on the Mount, ignore all of Jesus’s oral teaching and be spiritually complete and just go with the scriptures you had as a child.

No, of course not. Timothy needs more than that and likewise, we need more than that. So I want to propose here a pretty simple test. Whenever you hear a passage that somebody cites in support of solo scriptura, you somebody you’re listening to, whatever a really easy test is. This was solo script, excuse me, was solo scriptura when those words were written because Catholics and Protestants should both agree that solo scriptura wasn’t true during the time of the Apostles, right? Even if you think that all revelation is contained in the old and New Testament together, you have to at least admit that for a very long time the New Testament message hadn’t been written down, including or hadn’t, certainly hadn’t been written down in its completeness even while parts of the New Testament are being written. That was a kind of a bumbled presentation. So let me be clear, 27 books make up the New Testament when the first 26 books are being written.

There’s clearly more to the Christian message than has been written down unless you think the biblical books are just redundant. So a Christian couldn’t just reject the orally proclaimed portions of the gospel or portions of Christian teaching in favor of either the Old Testament alone or the Old Testament in the partial New Testament just on the grounds that the rest of the New Testament hadn’t been written yet. When Jesus rises from the dead, that is not initially something written down, and so Solo s scriptura is not true on Easter morning solo. S scriptura is not true for however many decades it takes between Easter and when John writes the book of Revelation or whichever book is last written, but most people think John’s revelation. So given that an important question we should have in mind as I say is, was Solis scriptura true when these words were written?

Because if it wasn’t true, then clearly the author isn’t teaching solis scriptura because they wouldn’t be teaching a false teaching. So as you’re thinking about two Timothy three 16 to 17, either one of two things is true. Either one St. Paul is claiming all we need is scripture. Therefore he’s teaching what was then a false teaching solo scriptura because we know solo scriptura wasn’t true While he’s writing or second he’s not teaching solo scriptura, and if Paul isn’t teaching solo scriptura in two Timothy three 16 to 17, don’t have that be the primary text you lean on to try to prove solo scriptura. Okay, let’s move on. So that as I say, is without a doubt far and away the number one passage I see Protestants rely on to try to prove soul. The scripture and the fact that they’re looking to one passage and a passage that doesn’t teach soul.

The S script when you actually carefully read it again should be a red flag, but it’s not the only passage I’ve seen. So let’s turn to the one that is probably the second most often cited and often misused one. This is Mark chapter seven, verses eight to nine when Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for elevating their traditions over the commandment of God. Now the error here I think is so obvious that I’m not even going to give you a lengthy kind of takedown because I think it is very simple. Jesus is clearly speaking of the tradition of men or manmade tradition and refers to it as your tradition, but the Catholic claim is not that all traditions are good, nor is it that manmade tradition is on the same level as God’s commands or on the same level as scripture. The Catholic claim is instead that there are traditions which aren’t manmade, that they’re not of human origin, they’re of divine origin, and you can think about this in a really simple way.

In Second Thessalonians chapter two, St. Paul warns the Thessalonians not to believe false teachings which are being circulated both by word or by letter, by epistle purporting to be from us. It would be wrong to say that, okay, well because Paul is demean some epistles, therefore all epistles are bad. That would be very clearly a false conclusion to draw from them. You can’t go from, there are some bad traditions to all traditions are bad or even all traditions are below scripture. Likewise, you can’t go from some epistles are bad to therefore all epistles are bad. It doesn’t fall logically. Instead, St. Paul reminds the Thessalonians, and we’re going to get back to this passage later, but he reminds them in Second Thessalonians to stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us either by word of mouth or by epistle. So if it helps, you can think about it like this when the biblical text refer to other texts as scriptures, the word being used there literally just means writing.

That’s what scripture means. We use the word scripture to mean like sacred writing. The New Testament doesn’t, it just uses a word that generically means writings clearly. Not all writings are sacred. You have the sacred writings. These are the ones St. Paul’s talked about in a second Timothy chapter three, but you’ve also got manmade writing. These are, some of them are good. Think that all the great theological works that you like that may help you in your spiritual life. Think about non-religious books that are still good for any number of other purposes. We’re not bashing other writing. So those are in that kind of middle tier. They’re good manmade writings. They’re not on the same level of scripture though, but they’re good. And then beneath that, you have wicked. It’s like the false teachings going around falsely purporting to claim to be by St. Paul.

These are the false epistles he’s warning about. So writings you’ve got divine, you’ve got good manmade ones, you’ve got evil manmade ones. The Catholic claim is very simply likewise with tradition. There is apostolic and divine tradition. The teachings, there’s the traditions you receive from us that St. Paul referred us to in Second Thessalonians, but then you also have manmade tradition. Not all manmade tradition is bad, but it’s not on the same level as scripture. And then you also do have wicked manmade traditions. There are some traditions that are actually evil. So saying that there are inferior to scripture, manmade traditions and that some them are even bad is true, but totally misses the argument because you could make the same point about writings and it wouldn’t be an argument against scripture. So hopefully that’s clear enough. This is an objection that just completely misses the mark.

We both agree that some manmade traditions contradict scripture that doesn’t prove all doctrine must come from scripture. Alright, the third passage that I see referred to is Revelation chapter 22, verse 18 to 19, and this passage warns against adding to or removing from the words of the prophecy of this book. Now there’s two obvious problems with trying to use this to prove solo script. First, the book in question isn’t the 66 book Protestant Bible, which didn’t exist yet. The book in question is the Book of Revelation, which was originally a standalone book. So if the warning not to add or remove anything means that we can only believe the prophecies found in that book, we’re going to have a very small and strange Bible consisting only of the book of Revelation, which would make for some pretty interesting theological conversations reading revelation with no other biblical context.

But of course, revelation 22 simply is not seen. It is not saying you can’t believe anything other than the book. It’s saying don’t tamper with the text, don’t add or remove words. You don’t do what Martin Luther did to Romans 3 28 where he openly admits to adding the word alone because it agrees with his theology. Don’t do that. Leave the biblical text alone. That doesn’t mean you can’t believe things other than that book. In fact, revelation 22 lite... Read more on Catholic.com